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THE GROUNDWORK 



OF 



PSYCHOLOGY 



BY 

Gf° F.^STOUT, M.A. Camb., M.A. Oxon., LL.D. Aberdeen 

FELLOW OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY ; PROFESSOR OF LOGIC AND METAPHYSICS 
IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ST. ANDREWS : LATE FELLOW OF ST. JOHN'S 
COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, AND WILDE READER IN MENTAL PHI- 
LOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD ; EDITOR OF 
"MIND"; AUTHOR OF "a MANUAL OF PSY- 
CHOLOGY " ; etc. 




HINDS & NOBLE, Publishers 
3 l > 33> 35 West 15TH Street, New York City 



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V>o^> 



THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 

Two Copies Received 

SEP 22 1903 

Copyright Entry 
CLASS 4, XXc. No 

££766 

COPY B.. 



Copyright, 1903, 

BY 

W. B. CLIVE. 



PREFACE 

The aim of this book is to present a general view of 
mental process and mental development which shall be 
comprehensive and yet not vague and sketchy. I have 
attempted to omit all matter which can be omitted without 
interfering with my main purpose. Thus I have passed 
by all questions of detail connected with the Psychology 
of the Special Senses. My endeavor has been to present 
only what is essential to insight into the constitution of 
our mental life as a whole. 

The work is a new one. It is not an abridgment of 
my Manual of Psychology. Even where the matter pre- 
sented is substantially the same, the mode of presentation 
is different. The two books have no more in common 
than is inevitable in works on the same subject by the 
same person. In some respects the Groundwork is in my 
own opinion an improvement on the Manual, because, 
since the Manual was written, my own views on certain 
questions have become more clear and precise. One dis- 
tinctive feature of the present work is the free use which 
it makes of material derived from observation of young 
children. 



iv PREFACE 

I am indebted to Mr. A. F. Shand for a valuable chap- 
ter on the Psychology of the Tender Emotions. I am 
also indebted to him for many useful suggestions mainly 
gathered from manuscript notes which he kindly commu- 
nicated to me. 

My best thanks are also due to Mr. Boyce Gibson and 
Mr. H. Sturt for their kindness in looking over proofs 
and in offering valuable suggestions and criticisms. The 
index is the work of my brother, Mr. J. F. Stout. 

G. F. STOUT. 
June 19, 1903. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I 

PAGE 

The Subject-matter of Psychology i 

What is a psychical process ? — The relation of psychical process 
to its object. — Subjective state not synonymous with psychical 
state. — How the psychologist is concerned with objects. — Nature 
of the " subject." — Conditions of psychical process. 



CHAPTER II 



Method and Sources of Data 10 

Method of psychology. — Sources of data. 

CHAPTER III 

Ultimate Division of Subjective Processes 18 

Simple apprehension and judgment. — Conation and feeling- 
attitude. 

CHAPTER IV 

Body and Mind 26 

General nature of their connection. — Higher and lower ner- 
vous arrangements. — Correlation of mental and physiological 
dispositions. 

CHAPTER V 

Sensation 37 

Sensory revivals. — Sensations vs. sensible qualities. — Stimulus 
and sensation. — Characters which sensations in general possess.- — ■ 
Different classes of sensation. — Qualitative affinities of sensation. 
— Higher and lower senses. 



vi TABLE OF CONTENTS 

CHAPTER VI 

PAGE 

Attention 48 

Unity of attention-process. — Ambiguity of the term "object of 
attention."- — The focus of attention. — Various kinds of attention. 

— Inattention. — Means of fixing attention. — Effects of attention. 

CHAPTER VII 

Retentiveness, Association, and Reproduction 58 

Attention and retention. — What is association ? — How associa- 
tions are formed. — The forms of reproduction. — Perceptual and 
ideational process. 

CHAPTER VIII 
Development of Child 72 

Child's development. — - Imitation. 

CHAPTER IX 

Perception of External Objects and of the Self 84 

Spatial perception. — Perception of external reality. — The em- 
bodied self. 

CHAPTER X 
Idea and Image 103 

Ideational process. — Idea and image. ■ — ■ Image and impression. 

— Types of mental imagery. 

CHAPTER XI 

Conditions of Ideal Revival 114 

Spontaneous revival. — Association and spontaneous revival. — 
"Association by contiguity." — Emotion as determining ideal re- 
vival. — Reproduction by similars. — Reproduction of similars. — 
Divergent revival. 

CHAPTER XII 

Productive Aspect of Ideational Process 130 

Production and reproduction. — Forms of combination. — -Com- 
parison and abstraction. — Types of ideal construction. — The 
revival of similars as determining ideal construction. — Conceptual 
character of ideational process. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS vii 

CHAPTER XIII 

PAGE 

Language 146 

Communication of ideas. — Language. — Language of natural 
signs. — Development of language in the child. 

CHAPTER XIV 

The World and the Self as known through Ideal Con- 
struction 164 

General nature of antithesis between self and external reality at 
the ideational level. — Growth of intersubjective intercourse. — 
Intersubjective intercourse and self-consciousness. — Intersubjective 
intercourse and the external world. 

CHAPTER XV 

Emotion 188 

General nature of the emotions. — Emotion and organic sensa- 
tion. James's theory. — Emotions as primary and derivative. 

CHAPTER XVI 

The Sources of Tender Emotion 198 

A psychological method for dealing with the emotions. — Tender 
emotion and sympathy. — Pity and the fundamental impulses of 
sorrow. — Reproach. — Gratitude. — Benevolence. — Aspiration, 
trust, resignation, reverence, repentance. — Love. — Tenderness as 
a complex and derived emotion. 

CHAPTER XVII 

The Sentiments 221 

Differentiation of interest. — The genesis of sentiments. — Senti- 
ments are dispositions, not actual feelings. — Development of sen- 
timents in complexity and abstractness. 

CHAPTER XVIII 

Voluntary Decision 229 

Development of will. — Actions which are intentional, but not 
due to voluntary decision. — Self-consciousness as the essential 
factor in voluntary decisions. — Motives and their fluctuations. — 
What is a voluntary decision ? — Freedom of the will. 

INDEX 241 



THE 
GROUNDWORK OF PSYCHOLOGY 

CHAPTER I 

THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF PSYCHOLOGY 

Psychology treats of psychical states and processes, 
their objects as such, and the conditions of their occur- 
rence. We have to inquire : (i) What is a psychical state 
or process? (2) What is meant by saying that it has an 
object, and in what way is psychology concerned with such 
objects ? (3) Of what nature are the conditions of its 
occurrence ? 

What is a Psychical Process ? — A psychical process is a 
process forming part of the life history of some indi- 
vidual consciousness. It is some one's experience, and it 
actually exists only while it is being actually experienced. 
I experience the sensation of yellow. When I turn away 
and think of something else, the sensation ceases to exist 
in ceasing to be experienced. On the contrary, the orange 
continues to be yellow when I no longer look at it, and it 
was yellow before I began to look at it. Yellowness as a 
quality of the orange is not a psychical state. 

The Relation of Psychical Process to its Object. — Turn- 
ing to our second question, — What do we mean when 
we say that a psychical process has an object? — we 
have first to note that subject and object are terms that 



2 THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF PSYCHOLOGY 

have meaning only in relation to each other. What is this 
relation ? 

Unhappily there is much ambiguity and confusion in 
current usage. Sometimes the relation of subject and 
object is identified with the relation between psychical 
process and its material conditions. ' The vibrations of a 
bell, the consequent agitation of the air, and the resulting 
occurrences in the ear and brain are regarded as objective 
in contrast with the sensation of sound which arises in 
connection with them. Sometimes only the conditions 
external to the body are said to be objective ; those within 
the body are ranked as subjective. Thus a singing in the 
ears is said to be a subjective sensation because its mate- 
rial conditions are subjective in the sense of being found 
within the body itself, independently of stimulation from 
outside. 

Both these usages agree in treating the distinction of 
subject and object as one of causality or of condition and 
consequence or something analogous. 

There would be no harm in this were it not that the 
terms are imperatively required for another purpose. 
They are required to express a relation which cannot be 
expressed in any other way. This relation is unique and 
ultimate, and it cannot therefore be formally defined. But 
we may so indicate it as to make plain what is meant. 

Consider the following list : Rejoicing, hoping, fearing, 
desiring, disliking, believing, questioning, doubting, being 
perplexed, feeling interest, failing to understand, purpos- 
ing, choosing. Each of these psychical states implies by 
its intrinsic nature a reference to something other than 
itself, which in common speech we should call its object. 
To choose is to choose something, to question is to ques- 
tion something, to fear is to fear something, and so on. 



SUBJECTIVE STATES VS. PSYCHICAL STATES 3 

The choosing, questioning, and fearing are subjective pro- 
cesses ; what in any case is chosen, called in question, or 
feared is the object of these processes. 

The subjective process may be contrasted with its object 
in various ways. They differ in their time relations. 
When I think of a future event as such, and desire it, the pro- 
cesses of thinking and desiring are not future, but present. 
Besides such formal differences there are also material 
differences. Subjective processes have a positive nature 
distinctively belonging to them, and not to their objects. 
Consider the process of questioning. When you inquire, 
What is this ? or What next ? the question expresses your 
subjective attitude only. The object you are thinking of 
is not thought of as having an interrogative nature. In 
asking the question you presuppose that so far as your 
object itself is concerned the answer is already predeter- 
mined. It is only you who hesitate between alternatives. 
Similarly with searching and believing. You search more 
or less keenly, you believe more or less strongly. The 
strength of your belief and the keenness of your search 
are qualifications of your subjective attitude, and not of 
the object. 

Subjective State not synonymous with Psychical State. 

— All subjective states are psychical; but not all psychical 
states are subjective. Sensations in general, so far as they 
enter into the relation of subject and object at all, fall to the 
side of the object, and not to that of the subject. When I 
listen to the sound of a bell, the act of listening is subjec- 
tive. But the sensation of sound is my object. I attend 
to it. I discriminate it from other simultaneous sounds, 
and perhaps compare it with these. I refer it to the bell 
as its cause. I note or attempt to note its quality, its 



4 THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF PSYCHOLOGY 

degree of loudness, its duration. I like it or dislike it. It 
is essentially an object in relation to these subjective pro- 
cesses of attending, discriminating, comparing, etc. The 
same holds good of sensations in general, such as those of 
sight, pressure, taste, and smell. They are all psychical 
states. They actually exist only while they are being 
actually experienced. But so far as they enter into the 
relation of subject and object at all, they are objective and 
not subjective. 

How the Psychologist is concerned with Objects. — The 

psychologist is concerned with sensations, inasmuch as they 
are psychical states. But he is also concerned with objects 
as such, whether they possess a psychical nature or not. 
His primary and distinctive interest is in the subjective side 
of the subject-object relation. But it is impossible to treat 
of subjective states without reference to their objects. It 
is impossible, for instance, to think of attention without 
reference to something attended to, or of a specific case of 
attention without reference to something specific which is 
attended to. The essential point is that psychology con- 
siders objects only in their relation to subjective process. 
An object of cognitive process interests the psychologist 
only in so far as somebody knows it, or comes to know 
it, or attempts to know it, or forgets it, or remembers it, 
or fails to remember it, and so on. An object of volition 
interests the psychologist only in so far as some one wills 
it, or comes to will it, or ceases to will it, etc. His interest 
in the object known or willed is conditioned by his interest 
in the processes of knowing and willing. 

Thus he has no direct concern with the constitution and 
laws of the external world. But it is his especial busi- 
ness to exhibit the process through which such a world 



NATURE OF SUBJECTIVE PROCESSES 5 

comes to be presented to the individual consciousness. 
He has no direct concern with spatial relations. But it is 
part of his task to show how the young child becomes 
aware of such relations. He is not called upon to define 
the real distinction between right and wrong, or to deter- 
mine the answer to any properly ethical question ; but it 
belongs to his business as a psychologist to show how the 
individual comes to make a distinction between what is 
morally right and what is morally wrong. 

Nature of the "Subject." — There is one thorny question 
which we have so far evaded. We have spoken freely of 
subjective processes ; but we have not discussed the nature 
of the subject whose processes they are. Yet it seems 
evident that attending implies some one who attends, 
that desiring implies some one who desires, and so on. 
Sensations also, though they are not subjective states, 
are states of a subject. They exist only in being experi- 
enced by some one. 

What has the psychologist to say concerning this some 
one who owns all the psychical states which are referred 
to one and the same mind ? On one point there is general 
agreement. The psychical states belonging to the same 
subject are connected with each other in an altogether 
peculiar way so as to form a unity of a unique kind. But 
here there is a divergence of opinion. Some maintain 
that the term "subject " is merely a name for the unified 
system of psychical processes, actual and possible, present, 
past, and future. On this view, when we say that a desire 
is some one's desire, we merely mean that it forms part 
of a certain connected totality of conscious experiences. 
Others regard the subject not as identical with the unified 
experience, but as a ground of union, a unifying principle. 



6 THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF PSYCHOLOGY 

It is supposed to be something which persists through its 
varying states and binds them together. 

As psychologists we are not bound to decide in favor 
of either of these opposing doctrines. For, as psycholo- 
gists, our concern is with psychical states and processes, 
and the unifying principle, if it exists, can only be known 
to us in and through the unity and continuity of conscious 
life, which it makes possible. We have no independent 
knowledge of it which could be of assistance to us in our 
special line of inquiry. The student of physical science is 
in a similar position as regards the problem of the thing 
and its qualities. He can do his work quite well without 
ever inquiring whether a material thing is simply the total 
complex of what are called its attributes, or a connecting 
principle which binds these attributes together. We 
need not attempt to determine what is ultimately implied 
in the use of the term "subject," just as the chemist or 
physicist need not attempt to determine what is ultimately 
implied in the use of the term "thing." 

What we have to investigate is the unity and continuity 
of the individual consciousness in its various forms, phases, 
and stages of development. 

In this investigation there is one principle never to be 
lost sight of. The unity of the subject is inseparably 
correlated with the unity of its object as such. As typi- 
cal examples of the unity of consciousness we may take 
the connection of a desire and its gratification, or that of 
asking a question and finding or receiving an answer. 
The continuity of desire and its gratification implies 
that what is obtained is identified with what was de- 
sired. Similarly the question which is answered must be 
identified with the question which was asked. In general, 
psychical process is one and continuous only in virtue of 



CONSCIOUS LIFE 7 

the recognized identity of its object. I am one in so far 
as my world is one. 

Conditions of Psychical Process. — We come now to the 
third of the questions with which we started. Psychology 
investigates the conditions of the occurrence of psychical 
states. What are these ? In part they are themselves 
psychical. They fall within the process of consciousness 
itself. Conscious life is a development in which preceding 
stages form the basis and presupposition of succeeding 
stages. But this internal development is not self-support- 
ing. It requires a multitude of contributory conditions 
which are not themselves psychical states or processes. 
The flow of individual consciousness is closely connected 
with and constantly dependent on a particular bodily organ- 
ism with its organs of sense and movement. The psychol- 
ogist cannot give a systematic account of psychical process 
without reference to these bodily conditions. He is also 
compelled at every step to recognize the existence of what 
are called psychical or mental dispositions, inherited and 
acquired. Our actual experience at any moment is deter- 
mined by conditions which are not themselves actual experi- 
ence, but the abiding after-effects left behind by prior 
experiences. I recognize a man to-day because I met him 
yesterday, although I may not have thought of him in the 
interval. This can only be because my experience of yes- 
terday has left behind an after-effect which has persisted 
through the intervening time and now determines my 
present experience. This residual after-effect is an ac- 
quired disposition. 

Again, what are, called in ordinary language friendship 
and enmity are acquired dispositions of a complex charac- 
ter rather than actual psychical processes. Friendship 



8 THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF PSYCHOLOGY 

involves such actual psychical processes as being glad at 
a person's prosperity, grieved at his misfortune, rejoiced 
to meet him, sorry to part from him, and so on. But these 
psychical states are merely partial and transient manifes- 
tations of the permanent friendly disposition. This is 
the abiding condition of these varying phases of actual 
emotion. 

The difference between the musical faculty of a Mozart 
and that of a man who can hardly learn to tell one note 
from another is a difference in inherited disposition. 

There are three ways in which dispositions may be re- 
garded by the psychologist. Primarily he knows them by 
the manner in which they operate in determining psychical 
process. It is from this point of view that he is led in the 
first instance to posit their existence at all. So regarded, 
they are merely permanent possibilities of psychical pro- 
cess. But of course they must in reality be more than this. 
A naked possibility is nothing. A possibility must be 
founded in the constitution of actual existence. What kind 
of actual existence does a psychical disposition possess ? It 
is sometimes said to be an unconscious state, or modification 
of the subject, and the subject considered as the possessor 
of such unconscious states or modifications is called a soul. 
Against this I have nothing to say. It may well be nearer 
to the ultimate truth than any other statement. But to the 
psychologist the conception of a soul is not helpful. He 
has no independent means of knowing anything about it 
which could be useful to him. For him the term " soul " 
is virtually only another name for the total system of 
psychical dispositions and psychical processes. But he has 
another clue which is more useful. Psychical dispositions, 
as well as psychical processes, have physiological correlates 
in states of nervous tissue. A psychical disposition is 



CONSCIOUS LIFE 9 

represented on the physiological side by a permanent 
modification of the substance of the brain. This may be 
called a physiological disposition. I do not say that the 
physiological disposition is identical with the psychical. 
But the two correspond in such a way that for psycho- 
logical purposes it is within limits a valid procedure to 
treat them as identical. 



CHAPTER II 

METHOD AND SOURCES OF DATA 

Method of Psychology. — The business of Psychology is 
to furnish a systematic and coherent account of the flow 
of psychical process in its various forms, phases, and 
stages, and of the conditions on which it depends. This 
involves description, generalization, and explanation. 

Description in the case of complex process includes 
analysis. The elementary constituents of the complex 
process must be discriminated and their form of combina- 
tion assigned. In dealing with constituents which are too 
simple to admit of further analysis, we must at least take 
care so to characterize them as to avoid ambiguity. We 
must point them out in such a manner that they will not be 
confused with anything else. This kind of pointing is illus- 
trated by the mode in which I have attempted to indicate 
what is meant by a subjective process. 

Analysis sometimes discriminates items A and B which 
are really separable, so that A is capable of existing in the 
absence of B, and B in the absence of A. Thus the total 
process of learning a list of dates includes the several acts 
of learning each separate date, and each of these could take 
place without the others. Sometimes A and B may be 
only distinguishable, but not separable. Thus pleasure 
and pain and the degree of intensity which belongs to 
them are indivisible ; and the same holds good of the act 
of believing and the degree of conviction with which the 



METHOD OF PSYCHOLOGY I I 

belief is held. Sometimes A may be separable from B but 
not B from A. It is possible to understand the meaning 
of a proposition without believing it ; but it is not possible 
to believe it without understanding its meaning. 

Generalization consists in the formulation of uniformities 
of coexistence and sequence. In psychology it consists in 
assigning the necessary and sufficient, or at any rate the 
necessary conditions of the occurrence of the various forms 
of psychical process. The conditions thus assigned are 
partly found within the flow of psychical life itself, and 
partly outside it. Thus the visual perception of an orange 
is in part conditioned by the structure and movement of 
the eye. But the structure and movement of the eye are 
facts of our bodily organization, not of our conscious life. 
On the other hand, the orange could not be perceived as 
such merely in virtue of ocular sensations. It is necessary 
that the percipient should have had previous conscious 
experience in which he has not only seen, but handled, 
tasted, and smelled oranges. Conditions of this kind are 
themselves psychical in their nature. 

Many rough and ready psychological generalizations 
are embodied in common proverbs. E.g. " The burnt child 
dreads the fire." " Bullies are cowards." " New brooms 
sweep clean." " Put a beggar on horseback and he will 
ride to the devil." " The wish is father to the thought." 
" Pride goes before a fall." 

Explanation consists in showing how general principles 
operate in relatively special cases, so as to answer the 
questions, why ? or how ? Thus on the basis of the gen- 
eral principles of the perception of spatial relations we 
may explain why the sun looks larger when it is near the 
horizon, or why the interval between two lines on a printed 
page appears greater when it is only brighter. Or, starting 



12 METHOD AND SOURCES OF DATA 

from the general laws of emotion and sentiment, we may 
explain why when love gives place to dislike, the dislike 
is frequently more intense because it was preceded by 
love. 

The power of explanation should involve some power of 
prediction more or less precise. This power is restricted 
in psychology because of the extreme complexity of the 
conditions of the mental life. But it is not absent. We 
can, for instance, prove that the exclusive use of certain 
kindergarten methods in the education of young children 
will arrest the development of imagination and lower the 
general level of intelligence. We can predict that close 
contact of savages with a civilization which they cannot 
assimilate will demoralize them in some respects, if not on 
the whole. We can predict that a body seen with one eye 
at a certain distance from the observer will alter its ap- 
parent configuration if the distribution of light and shade 
on its surface is altered in certain ways. Such examples 
might be indefinitely multiplied. But it is to be remem- 
bered that such prediction is nearly always conditional and 
liable to exceptions, owing to the presence of factors 
which counteract those on which the prediction is founded. 
For instance, we cannot by altering the distribution of 
light and shade cause a human face to appear concave 
instead of convex. The ordinary appearance is too familiar 
and habitual for this to be possible. 

Sources of Data. — The sources of psychological data 
are manifold and diverse. But they can be ultimately 
grouped under three heads: (i) Introspection, or "the notice 
which the mind takes of its own operations " (Locke) ; 
(2) Inference from the behavior of others to their psy- 
chical processes ; (3) The results of previous mental devel- 



SOURCES OF DATA 1 3 

opment as supplying a clue to the processes through which 
they have been reached. 

(1) Introspection is sometimes called inner perception, 
and also inner sense. The term "sense" in this applica- 
tion is, however, really nonsense. When I perceive a tree, 
the tree acts on a sense-organ — say the eye — and so gives 
rise to sensations of color. When I notice that I am 
desiring, doubting, impatient, or resentful, these processes 
do not act on any sense-organ or produce anything analo- 
gous to a sensation. My perception of them is not sense- 
perception. But though it is not sense-perception, it may 
be appropriately called perception. Roughly speaking, the 
essential character of perception is that the actual existence 
of its object operates as a factor directly determining our 
cognition of that object. When I perceive a tree, the tree 
itself as an actual existence contributes to determine my 
cognition of it by acting on my sense-organs, and so giving 
rise to sensations. This is not so when I merely remem- 
ber the tree in its absence. Similarly, when I am feeling 
disappointed and take note of my feeling, the feeling 
itself as it exists at the moment is a factor determining my 
apprehension of it. In a mere remembrance of having 
felt disappointment in the past, this would not be so. 

The actual existence and agency of what is perceived at 
the moment of perception is neyer the sole factor deter- 
mining cognition, whether what is perceived be a material 
thing or a psychical state. Its controlling influence is 
always blended with that of previous experience and the 
direction of attention at the moment. What the botanist 
perceives when he looks at a plant is different from what 
a child of three would perceive, though both may have 
virtually the same sensations. The sense presentation is 
differently interpreted, and different features are noticed. 



14 METHOD AND SOURCES OF DATA 

Similarly, what the trained psychologist may perceive when 
he observes his own anger may be different from what the 
untrained would discern. Both in observation of material 
phenomena and of psychical processes, what you find 
depends on what you bring with you. It depends on the 
questions you are primed with, and on your explicit or 
implicit anticipations, assumptions, inferences, or inter- 
pretations. 

(2) Logically, the knowledge of self has always a cer- 
tain priority as compared with knowledge of others. We 
can only interpret manifestations of mind in others on the 
analogy of our own mental processes. But in their actual 
development, the two kinds of knowledge show the closest 
interdependence. The growth of self-knowledge and of 
knowledge of others are virtually two aspects of a single 
process. It is mainly in the attempt to find out what goes 
on in other minds that we are led to notice what goes on 
in our own. Inner observation finds here the most potent 
motive and its guiding clue. Further, though in the first 
instance interpretation of the manifestations of the work- 
ing of other minds logically presupposes acquaintance with 
our own, yet the success or failure of the interpretation 
supplies an all-important means of testing the validity and 
adequacy of our self-knowledge. The success or failure 
of our interpretation is tested by its power to cover all the 
relevant facts gained by observation and experiment in a 
coherent and systematic way. If we succeed in giving a 
coherent and systematic account of the behavior of young 
children and animals, this is the best verification we can 
have of the validity and adequacy of the psychological 
analysis which forms the basis of our explanation. It is 
hardly too much to say that while children and animals are 
mysteries to us, we do not fully understand ourselves. 



SOURCES OF DATA 1 5 

(3) Mental life is a progressive development in which 
we come to perceive, imagine, believe, desire, will, love, or 
hate, objects which were not previously objects of our 
perception, imagination, belief, desire, or hatred, or love. 
So far as this gradual growth of the objective content of 
consciousness is due to psychical processes, proceeding in 
accordance with general laws, or in a systematic order, it 
is the business of the psychologist to trace it. Suppose 
that we have a series of letters by the same person, begin- 
ning at six years old, and continued at weekly intervals 
until he reaches the age of twenty. We may assume that 
the letters contain little in the way of direct description 
of the workings of his own mind. They are, let us say, 
occupied mainly with things he has seen or heard, things 
he wants to do or get, expressions of opinion, and of 
approval and disapproval of what goes on around him. 
Any one with a psychological bias, who should read these 
letters, would naturally attempt to frame a connected view 
of the course of mental development represented by them. 
This might be merely biographical. It might be only a 
more or less systematic representation of the mental history 
of this particular individual. But the reader of the letters 
may also attempt to generalize. He may attempt to dis- 
cover in the particular case before him forms and princi- 
ples of mental development which apply beyond this 
particular case. So far as he generalizes in this way he 
has entered upon the province of Psychology. 

This illustration is drawn from the course of mental 
development in a single individual. But for Psychology 
the most important data of the kind are results of mental 
process common to whole societies, and in some cases to 
all normal human beings. For instance, the presentation 
of a surrounding world of material things and processes 



1 6 METHOD AND SOURCES OF DATA 

is in certain broad features the same for all men. As the 
great logician, Sigwart, puts it, " We all comprehend and 
distinguish the same things in the same space and in the 
same spatial relations, and agree in the way in which we 
connect our experiences in time, and recognize the same 
similarities and differences." We know that this world, 
which is the common possession of normal adults, does not 
exist for the consciousness of the young child. The young 
child shows an extremely vague apprehension of spatial 
relations and a still vaguer apprehension of time relations. 
His apprehension of a world ordered in space and time, 
such as we ourselves have cognizance of, comes as the 
result of a long and complex series of psychical processes, 
and it therefore constitutes a psychological problem. But 
the existence and nature of the result, the fact that we do 
now all apprehend a world so constituted, forms an indis- 
pensable datum from which the psychologist starts, and 
to which he must constantly return in order to test his 
hypotheses concerning the nature of the process by which 
this result has been attained. 

If we neglect to emphasize the importance of such 
relatively fixed and universal products of mental process 
as data and starting points, we are likely to form a wrong 
view of the general aim of psychology. It may be falsely 
supposed that it is the business of the psychologist to 
perform such feats as are attributed to Sherlock Holmes 
or to E. A. Poe's detective hero. It may be supposed that 
the psychologist ought to have the power of following the 
actual course of consciousness in this or that individual so 
as to be able to discover from slight indications what he 
has been thinking of during the last half-hour, or even 
to predict what he is going to think of during the next 
half-hour. Such demands are illegitimate. Like every 



SOURCES OF DATA I 7 

other science psychology must simplify its problems. It 
cannot, any more than mechanics, physics, or physi- 
ology, unravel the actual complexity of the concrete. 
Hence it must frame for itself by abstraction and gener- 
alization problems which are capable of solution. For this 
purpose, it is important to take as points of departure 
well-defined, general products of mental development, and 
then inquire into the nature of the process through which 
these products have arisen. 



CHAPTER III 

ULTIMATE DIVISION OF SUBJECTIVE PROCESSES 

The aim of the present chapter is to distinguish the 
most general and ultimate kinds of subjective process. 
Our question is : What are the ultimately distinct modes 
of being conscious of an object ? 

The most usual answer is that there are three such 
modes, Cognition, Feeling-attitude, and Conation. Under 
Cognition is included the bare fact of the presentation 
of an object to consciousness together with the subjective 
attitudes of questioning, believing, disbelieving, doubting, 
and so on. Under Feeling-attitude is included the being 
agreeably or disagreeably affected towards an object, or 
feeling some kind of emotion towards it, such as anger, 
surprise, or fear. Under Conation are included all felt 
appetency or endeavor, all longing, wishing, craving, de- 
siring, willing. This threefold division has been current 
since the time of Kant. Previously, Feeling-attitude had 
not been made a separate head, so that only two ultimate 
processes were recognized — the Cognitive and the Cona- 
tive, knowing and willing. Of late there has again arisen 
a tendency to fall back upon a dual division, bringing 
Feeling-attitude and Conation under the same head. It is 
clear that they are much more closely akin to each other 
than either of them is to Cognition. It also seems clear 
that there is as fundamental a distinction between the bare 
thought of an object and the affirmation or denial of its 



SIMPLE APPREHENSION AND JUDGMENT 1 9 

reality as there is between Feeling-attitude and Conation. 
The best plan is to adopt a most comprehensive dual 
division into " Cognition " on the one hand and " Inter- 
est" on the other. Cognition may then be subdivided 
under the heads, Simple Apprehension and Judgment ; and 
Interest may be subdivided under the heads Conation and 
Feeling-attitude. 

Cognition Interest 

I I 



Simple Apprehension Judgment Conation Feeling-attitude 

Simple Apprehension and Judgment. — First let us exam- 
ine the distinction of Simple Apprehension and Judgment. 1 
It is one thing to apprehend the meaning of a proposition 
and another to believe, disbelieve, doubt, or question it. 
To think of a thing is not the same as affirming or deny- 
ing its existence. 

This distinction is not merely formal. Simple apprehen- 
sion is not merely distinguishable from Judgment. It is also 
separable from it in a partial and relative way. It is impor- 
tant to note the saving clause — "in a partial and relative 
way." I do not mean to say that the total subjective atti- 
tude at any moment can be one of simple apprehension with- 
out any admixture of judgment. On the other hand, it is 
clear that there can be no judgment without simple ap- 
prehension. 

That would be judging without anything to judge about. 
I now proceed to give instances of the relative and partial 
separation of simple apprehension from judgment. 

It is possible to be interested in an object without refer- 

1 This distinction is to be found in all ordinary text-books of logic, but not 
from a psychological point of view. 



20 ULTIMATE DIVISION OF SUBJECTIVE PROCESSES 

ence to its real existence. Thus the bare thought of being 
hissed may affect an actor disagreeably and the mere idea 
of a comic situation may excite laughter. Suppose that 
a man is absorbed in the enjoyment of the beauty of a 
picture. He is aware of the picture as really existing and 
so far his mental attitude is one of judgment or belief. 
But this unformulated judgment is in the background of 
consciousness. It has nothing to do with the man's enjoy- 
ment. His interest is not in the real existence of the 
picture but in the mere presentation of it. If it threatens 
to fall and he stretches out his hand to save it, there is a 
transition from interest in what is simply apprehended to 
interest in real existence. A similar change of attitude 
takes place if he passes from purely aesthetic contempla- 
tion to the business of purchasing the picture. 

In the play of fancy, e.g. in day-dreaming, we do not 
attempt to conform our thoughts to reality. Throwing 
aside such restrictions, we shape the object of conscious- 
ness as we like. So far as this freedom extends (and it is 
never complete), the object is an object of simple apprehen- 
sion and not of belief, disbelief, questioning, or doubt. We 
do not affirm, we do not deny, and we do not doubt its reality, 
so far as the merely imaginative attitude is maintained. 
We simply abstain from raising questions of this kind. 

An illustration of a different sort may be drawn from 
the use of words in speaking, reading, writing, and silent 
thinking. The words as printed or written characters or 
as articulate sounds are somehow present to our con- 
sciousness. But we are not usually framing judgments 
about them. So far as we judge, we judge concerning 
that which the words signify. As articulate sounds or as 
written or printed characters, the words are in the main 
objects of simple apprehension merely. 



CONATION AND FEELING- ATTITUDE 2 1 

Conation and Feeling-attitude. 

Conation. — The peculiar nature of conative conscious- 
ness — of craving, longing, desiring, willing, etc. — is char- 
acterized by its relation to what is called its satisfaction or 
fulfilment. In so far as conation is satisfied or fulfilled, it 
disappears in its own satisfaction or fulfilment. Thus 
hunger disappears with eating and curiosity disappears 
when its questions are answered. Conation may cease in 
other ways either for a time or permanently. Thus it may 
be displaced or overborne by other interests, or it may die 
out through fatigue, or because it is persistently balked or 
disappointed. But the kind of ending which is distinctively 
prescribed for it by its own intrinsic nature is attained only 
when it terminates in its own fulfilment. It disappears in 
its own fulfilment as a question disappears in its answer. 
Just as the question is no longer a question when and so 
far as it is answered, so the desire to know the answer 
ceases to be a desire when and so far as the answer be- 
comes known. 

Conation and its satisfaction can never completely coin- 
cide in the same moment of consciousness. Otherwise the 
conation would from the outset be merged and lost in ful- 
filment, and it would therefore not be felt at all. In order 
that it may be felt there must be at least a partial delay of 
complete satisfaction. This is possible in two ways. In 
the first place, the satisfaction may come gradually, so that 
we are progressively becoming satisfied, and yet in each 
stage of the process we are partially unsatisfied. For 
instance, we sit down to a meal with a ravenous appetite ; 
and in eating we gradually take off the edge of the appe- 
tite. None the less the appetite is still felt, though in a 
diminishing degree, until it is fully appeased — until it is 
satiated. In the second place, we may not only be par- 



22 ULTIMATE DIVISION OF SUBJECTIVE PROCESSES 

daily unsatisfied, but not even advancing towards full sat- 
isfaction. We may feel a keen appetite for food, when no 
food is accessible ; we may long after something which is 
entirely beyond reach, such as the undoing of a past action. 

The conative side of our nature is the active side. What- 
ever takes place or fails to take place in consequence of 
the intrinsic tendency of conative consciousness to find its 
own fulfilment is said to be pro tanto due to our activity. 
Successful activity is the self-fulfilment of conscious en- 
deavor or purpose. 

It is important to distinguish between the Satisfaction of 
conation and its Object. The Obj ect of conative consciousness 
is constituted by the conditions of satisfaction as they appear 
to the subject in advance of their actual occurrence. This 
previous view of the conditions of satisfaction may be frag- 
mentary and indefinite in varying degrees. It may be, in 
varying degrees, true or illusory. Without some antici- 
pative cognizance of what we want there would be no cona- 
tion in the proper sense, but at the most mere restlessness. 
But the anticipation may be of the vaguest kind. What 
is essential is that there should be some clew, however slight, 
so that our striving consciousness may not be absolutely 
blind and undirected. Take the case of wanting to know 
something. If we start with a definite question, we antici- 
pate a correspondingly definite answer. But of course we 
do not know beforehand precisely what the answer is going 
to be. Otherwise we should not be seriously asking the 
question. To this extent, what we want is indefinitely 
apprehended by us. But in some cases there is not even 
a formal question. There is a vague awareness of igno- 
rance or of confusion hard to formulate in any distinct way. 
We are puzzled but cannot lay our finger on the difficulty. 
It often happens in such cases, that a wrong question is 



CONATION AND FEELING-ATTITUDE 23 

asked, so that the answer turns out to be more or less 
irrelevant. Or, to take a classical instance, a man of busi- 
ness is dissatisfied and longs for a life of retirement and 
leisure. Yet when he obtains what he thought himself to 
want, he discovers that it is not what he really desired. It 
is not actually satisfying. His previous view had been in 
part indefinite and in part illusory. To a very large extent 
we only find out what we want, if at all, in the process of 
attainment ; and in the same way we are frequently discov- 
ering that we do not really want what we had supposed 
ourselves to want. The course of conative process towards 
satisfaction is marked by trial and failure, leading gradu- 
ally to better-instructed and more successful trials. 

The object of conation is always apprehended as change 
in what is regarded as an actual situation. The actual 
situation is apprehended as alterable. The change may 
be thought of either as the removal of some preexisting 
feature of the situation or as the addition of some positive 
feature which is as yet non-existent. When the main 
emphasis is on the removal of what is actually present, 
conation is called aversion. Repugnance, hatred, dislike, 
regret, antipathy, etc., are forms of this negative direction 
of striving consciousness. When the main emphasis is 
on the introduction of what is actually absent, conation 
is called appetition. Special forms of this are longing, 
desire, aspiration, etc. 

The total object of conative consciousness includes two 
parts: (1) what appears as the end, (2) what appears as 
the means. We wish, will, or desire the end for its own 
sake, and we wish, will, or desire the means because with- 
out them the end is not attainable. However indifferent, 
or even repugnant, the means may be in themselves, yet 
in so far as they are means to the end they are part of 



24 ULTIMATE DIVISION OF SUBJECTIVE PROCESSES 

the object of conation. This object remains relatively 
indefinite and fragmentary so long as the means are un- 
specified. We know completely what we want only when 
we know how to get it or see clearly that it is unattainable. 
Feeling-attitude in all its variations is most intimately 
connected with conation. We may distinguish three groups 
of cases. Under the first come all those phases of feeling- 
attitude which occur as episodes in the life history of a 
preexisting conation — all pains of disappointment or de- 
feat and all pleasures of success or fruition, together with 
concomitant varieties of specific emotion, anger, fear, hope, 
despair, triumph, etc. These feelings occur in connection 
with the various ways and degrees in which conative ten- 
dencies are being satisfied or dissatisfied, furthered or 
hindered. In such instances it is evident both that cona- 
tion and feeling-attitude are distinguishable, and also that 
they are blended in the most intimate unity. In the 
second group of cases feeling-attitude and conation emerge 
coincidently, so that we cannot ascribe priority to either. 
In toothache the disagreeable consciousness and aversion 
coincide. Indeed, it seems super-subtle to make a distinc- 
tion between them. Common sense does not do so. It 
finds no occasion to recognize the presence of conation at 
all until some kind of attempt is made to obtain relief. 
But, in strictness, the conative attitude of aversion is 
present from the outset, and the attempt to obtain relief 
is a development of it. In the third group of cases, Feel- 
ing-attitude exists by itself without any appreciable inter- 
mixture of conative consciousness. Suppose that we 
are lying by the side of a brook on a summer day and 
simply allowing ourselves to be soothed by sights, sounds, 
odors, and our own healthy bodily sensations. Here 
there is certainly agreeable consciousness of ourselves 



CONATION AND FEELING-ATTITUDE 25 

and of our surroundings. But it may be difficult or im- 
possible to trace any felt conation. Our condition appears 
to be purely inactive. But in such experiences, the cona- 
tive attitude is always lurking, as it were, behind the 
scenes, ready to emerge at once, if the pleasure-giving 
conditions are in any way interrupted or discontinued 
before satiety is reached, e.g. if the sun becomes unpleas- 
antly hot, or the flies disturb us, or some one attempts to 
rouse us. The reason why conation fails to appear while 
the pleasure-giving condition continues is that it is con- 
tinuously merged in its own satisfaction. There is always 
a potential conation and it is only in reference to this that 
the Feeling-attitude can properly be called Interest. For 
the term "interest" always involves reference to a satis- 
faction which is not yet completely attained. In the 
present class of instances the reference is to a satisfaction 
in which even the potential conation terminates. In other 
words, the reference is to satiety — that phase of the 
process in which continuance of the pleasure-giving condi- 
tion would cease to give pleasure and would only bore us. 

At this point we might fitly proceed to discuss the con- 
nection of Cognition and Interest. But I reserve this for 
a subsequent chapter on Attention, which is the meeting- 
point of Interest and Cognition. Before dealing with this 
topic it will be found convenient to say something about 
the relation of Body and Mind, and also about Sensation. 
These will form the subjects of the next two chapters. 



CHAPTER IV 

BODY AND MIND 

General Nature of their Connection. — A multitude of the 
most familiar facts of ordinary experience point unmis- 
takably to a most intimate and thoroughgoing interde- 
pendence of bodily process and psychical process. When 
a flame comes in contact with my skin, I feel a certain 
painful sensation. When I will to move my finger, my 
finger moves. Mental anxiety may produce headache, and 
headache may make us unequal to mental exertion. 

Science extends the range of evidence beyond what is 
accessible to common-sense. Besides this, it has succeeded 
in distinguishing those bodily processes which are directly 
connected with the conscious life of a human being from 
those which are connected with it only indirectly. The 
psychic processes are directly connected with occurrences 
in the nervous system, and indirectly with occurrences 
in other tissues and organs. The function of the central 
nervous system is to control and combine the various pro- 
cesses which go on in different parts of the organism. 
From all parts of the organism impulses or waves of 
excitement are propagated to it along ingoing or afferent 
nerve-fibres, and in return impulses or waves of excitement 
are propagated from it along outgoing or efferent nerve- 
fibres to all parts of the organism. It thus makes possible 
the cooperation of different organs, binding them into a 
dynamic unity. Hence the immediate connection of psy- 

26 



CONNECTION OF PSYCHICAL PROCESSES 2J 

chical processes with the process in the nervous system 
involves a mediate connection with all other parts of the 
body. 

But the psychical processes of human beings are not 
directly connected with all parts of the nervous system, 
but only with that part of it which is situated within the 
skull. And even here the immediate connection seems to 
be mainly, if not exclusively, limited to the brain proper, 
the topmost layer of gray nervous tissue which is called 
the cortex of the cerebrum. Our psychical processes have 
as their immediate material correlate cortical or cerebral 
processes. The precise nature of the correlation is not 
known. But for psychological purposes, what is called 
the hypothesis of psychophysical parallelism supplies the 
most convenient way of formulating the facts, so far as we 
are acquainted with them. 

Following this hypothesis we treat the connection as sim- 
ply one of concomitance, and concomitant variation. When 
a certain psychical process occurs, a certain cerebral pro- 
cess occurs simultaneously with it. Variations in the 
nature of the psychical process are attended by strictly 
correspondent variations in the nature, and to some extent 
in the locality, of the correlated cerebral process. When 
the contact of my skin with a flame occasions a painful 
sensation, what happens is as follows : The contact of the 
flame with the skin sets up a wave of excitement in certain 
afferent or ingoing nerves, which is propagated through 
intermediate masses of gray matter till it reaches the cere- 
bral cortex. There it produces a molecular disturbance, 
and coincidently with this, the psychical state, which I call 
the painful experience of being burned, comes into being. 
The external stimulus cannot give rise to the painful sensa- 
tion without at the same time and in the same act giving 



25 BODY AND MIND 

rise to the corresponding cortical process. Similarly, when 
I will to move my finger, and the finger in consequence 
moves, the psychic state, which I call my volition, is 
coincident with a certain agitation of the particles of the 
nervous tissue of my brain. This cerebral disturbance 
sets going currents of excitement which are finally propa- 
gated along outgoing nerves to the muscles which move 
my finger. These contract and the finger moves. The 
volition without the correlated cortical process would not 
move the finger. On the other hand, we cannot suppose 
that the correlated cortical process could exist without the 
volition. Hence it could not move the finger without the 
volition. 

This hypothesis is, as I have said, simply a convenient 
way of formulating the facts so far as they are known to 
us. It lays no claim to established certainty, and it must 
not be taken to imply or suggest any metaphysical theory. 
Above all, it must not be supposed to imply that psychical 
processes are in any way products — not even bye-products 
— of the correlated nervous processes. Such a view in 
my opinion leads to intolerable absurdity. But this is not 
the place to discuss the metaphysical problem. What 
interests us psychologically is that the facts represented 
by the formula of psychophysical parallelism give us access 
to a great deal of useful knowledge concerning the condi- 
tions of psychical processes, and to some extent help us to 
understand their nature. 

" Higher " and Lower Nervous Arrangements. — We now 
proceed to consider certain important aspects of the gen- 
eral correspondence of mental and nervous occurrences, 
(i) The correspondence of the distinction of higher and 
lower psychical processes with that of higher and lower 



MENTAL AND NERVOUS OCCURRENCES 29 

nervous arrangements. (2) The correlation of psychical 
dispositions with physiological dispositions. 

Lower nervous arrangements are related to higher as 
the nervous system in general is related to the rest of the 
body. The nervous system is a unifying centre which 
connects in varying combinations the processes going on 
in other tissues and organs. Similarly, a relatively higher 
nervous arrangement combines and coordinates the work- 
ings of relatively lower nervous arrangements. Apart 
from the higher the actions of the lower are comparatively 
detached and isolated from each other. In relation to the 
rest of the nervous system, the cerebrum is a higher ner- 
vous arrangement. A frog, from which the cerebral hemi- 
spheres have been removed, can, by the application of 
appropriate stimuli, be induced to perform nearly all the 
movements which an entire frog is capable of executing. 
" When thrown into the water it begins to swim, and goes 
on swimming until it is exhausted. If placed on its back, 
it recovers its natural position. If its flanks be gently 
stroked, it will croak ; and the croaks follow so regularly 
and surely upon the strokes that the animal can almost be 
played upon like a musical instrument." 1 The decapitated 
frog is capable of all the elementary movements necessary 
for the preservation of its existence. But they occur in 
detachment from each other. They are combined and 
coadjusted in varying ways in response to varying circum- 
stances. 

The whole nervous system, including the brain, appears 
to be throughout organized on a similar plan. Relatively 
lower nervous arrangements are coordinated and controlled 
in their operation by relatively higher, and these again by 
higher, and so on. When a man begins to learn to swim 

1 "Text-book of Physiology." By Michael Foster. 6th ed., pp. 1000-1001. 



30 BODY AND MIND 

or to play the violin, the separate movements required are 
already roughly provided for by his preexisting nervous 
organization. What he has to acquire is the due com- 
bination and coadjustment of these elementary movements 
in simultaneous and successive order. Thus acquisition 
involves the formation of a higher nervous arrangement 
which coordinates the action of the lower nervous mecha- 
nisms, using them as its instruments. Similarly, the pro- 
nunciation of words is connected with a special nervous 
arrangement for variously combining and coadjusting the 
movements of the tongue and larynx. 

In general, the lower nervous arrangements are more 
stably organized than the higher. They are more fixed 
and uniform in their mode of action, less capable of vary- 
ing responses to fluctuating conditions. " In the brainless 
frog, each stimulus evokes an appropriate movement," and 
always the same movement, whereas with the entire animal 
it is impossible to predict whether any result at all, and, if 
so, what result, will follow the application of the stimulus. 1 
This distinction of higher and lower in nervous organiza- 
tion is correlated with a corresponding distinction of higher 
and lower in psychical processes. Playing on the violin is 
a higher mental process than the isolated performance of 
the elementary movements which are combined in it. The 
discovery of a theory binding together a multiplicity of 
detached facts in the unity of a single principle is a higher 
mental process than the apprehension of the several facts 
in comparative isolation. The systematic combination of 
successive acts in subordination to a single end or principle 
of conduct is a higher psychical process than the perform- 
ance of similar acts on the detached impulse of the mo- 
ment. As the psychical process is higher, so the nervous 

1 "Text-book of Physiology." By Michael Foster. 6th ed., pp. iooo-iooi. 



MENTAL AND NERVOUS OCCURRENCES 3 1 

process correlative with it is correspondingly higher in the 
sense explained. 

This is well illustrated by the gradual action of drugs 
and similar agents on the nervous system. The highest 
nervous arrangements, being least stably organized, are first 
affected, and then progressively the lower in descending 
order. The effect of alcohol may serve as an example. 
The first well-marked symptom is a diminution of self- 
consciousness. It is notorious that a man when slightly 
under the influence will boldly do and say things that in 
his normal state he would refrain from doing and saying, 
owing to the rapid representation of himself as he would 
appear to the eyes of others. At this stage he may begin 
to talk more fluently and perhaps more brilliantly than in 
his sober state. But the power of sustained and continu- 
ous thinking becomes more and more impaired as the alco- 
hol takes more hold on his nervous system. There is a 
comparative absence of coherence in his talk, though it 
may continue to show isolated brilliancies. At a later 
stage, the incoherence and the limitation of range become 
more marked. The man "may repeatedly perform some 
such action as shaking hands or the asking of some ques- 
tion, without remembering that he has gone through the 
same performance in the previous moment." The finer 
movements — requiring accurate coordination and atten- 
tion — are no longer possible. In a yet later stage such 
actions as walking cannot be performed, owing to the 
inability to balance the trunk and coordinate movements, 
but the purely reflex element in walking, the rhythmic 
movement of the legs, is still possible, for if supported on 
either side, the patient may still walk very well. Finally, 
coma intervenes — the drunken sleep. 1 Before leaving this 

1 This description is adapted from an article by W. MacDougall in Mind, 
N. S., No. 27, p. 380. 



32 BODY AND MIND 

topic, there is one point which I wish to emphasize. It is 
that the physiological evidence is against what is called 
associationism. According to the associationist, higher 
mental processes are merely resultants formed by the com- 
bination or fusion of lower. For instance, the perception 
of an object is regarded as merely a complex of sensations. 
It is regarded as being merely these sensations combined 
in a group or cluster. But we have seen that the coordina- 
tion of lower nervous processes depends on a relatively new 
and distinct nervous arrangement. According to the prin- 
ciple of psychophysical parallelism, this must mean that 
the synthesis of lower mental process in a higher unity 
depends on a relatively new and distinct mental process. 
The higher mental process does combine the lower, but it 
is not merely the lower in combination. It is rather their 
coordinating centre of unity. 

Correlation of Mental and Physiological Dispositions. 1 — 
The most useful evidence and illustrations are derivable 
from diseases of memory — from cases of amnesia pro- 
duced by pathological conditions. These conditions either 
destroy nervous dispositions or render them for a time in- 
operative. When this happens the psychical dispositions 
are correspondingly affected. We may distinguish three 
groups of cases, (a) Cases of general amnesia, (b) Cases 
of amnesia affecting special periods in the life of the indi- 
vidual, (c) Cases of amnesia affecting certain kinds of 
experience, while leaving others untouched. 

(a) General amnesia may come on gradually or suddenly. 
A good instance of its gradual progress is supplied by the 
forgetfulness of old age. The retention of the most recent 
experiences is first impaired. At this stage a piece of busi- 
ness is likely to be forgotten altogether if it is interrupted. 

1 For the meaning of the term " disposition," see pp. 7-9 above. 



MENTAL AND NERVOUS OCCURRENCES 33 

The events of yesterday or of the day before, intentions 
then formed or orders received, are effaced from memory. 
It is only by gradual steps that forgetfulness descends 
towards the past. The reason is that, with the advance 
of age, nervous tissues, like other tissues, become less plas- 
tic, less easily modifiable. After fifty a new language 
or a new science are serious undertakings, and are as a 
rule only acquired imperfectly. Hence, old acquirements 
formed when the tissues were comparatively plastic, pre- 
sent most resistance to the encroachment of senile am- 
nesia. In more advanced stages of senile decay we find 
that the advance of amnesia follows an order like that 
which we traced in the case of drunkenness. The rela- 
tively higher processes are first impaired, until the old 
man is reduced to second childhood. 

General amnesia may occur suddenly, owing to a physi- 
cal injury or a moral shock. The following is a typical 
case. A clergyman lost his consciousness for some days 
in consequence of a fall. On coming to himself, he had 
forgotten all that he had learned at school and college. 
Even his mother tongue had to be reacquired. He was 
reduced to the condition of an intelligent infant. His edu- 
cation had to recommence anew. After some months his 
memory returned, little by little, and became completely 
reestablished. 

(&) There are many instances, varying much in their 
character, in which forgetfulness relates to some particular 
period in the history of the individual. Abnormal condi- 
tions operating at a certain time create a discontinuity 
between the general state of the organism then and its 
usual state. This is accompanied by a corresponding dis- 
continuity of conscious life. The dispositions formed 
under the abnormal conditions are not excitable under 



34 BODY AND MIND 

normal conditions. Physical shock, such as may be 
caused by a blow on the head, often occasions forgetful- 
ness of the circumstance of the accident, frequently extend- 
ing to what happened a short time after it or before it. A 
child of four years, having fractured his skull, underwent 
a surgical operation. On his recovery he had forgotten 
both the accident and the operation. But at the age of 
five, in the delirium of a fever he gave a circumstantial 
account of them. It is matter of common knowledge 
that a man frequently forgets when he is sober what 
he has said and done when he was drunk. The somnam- 
bulist usually cannot remember what he has said in his 
sleep-talking or done in his sleep-walking. But on a re- 
currence of either state the thread of thought and action 
is resumed at the point where it left off. A young lady 
in a state of somnambulism snatched a locket from her 
sister containing some of their deceased brother's hair. 
She resisted attempts to take it from her, and before pass- 
ing into ordinary sleep she placed it under her pillow, 
remarking, " Now I have hid it in safety." On waking 
in the morning she knew nothing of what had happened. 
When the somnambulism recurred a few days afterwards, 
she immediately began to look for the locket under her 
pillow. It had been removed in the interval. But she 
continued to search, saying : " It must be there. I put it 
there myself a few minutes ago." 1 Finally, we may refer 
to cases of double personality. One of the best as well as 
the oldest is that of an American lady who became totally 
oblivious of her previous existence after waking from a 
deep sleep which had lasted some days. Her whole envi- 
ronment, including both persons and things, was as strange 
to her as if she had been placed in it for the first time. 

1 " Carpenter's Mental Physiology," pp. 597-598. 



MENTAL AND NERVOUS OCCURRENCES 35 

She had to learn everything over again, and her progress 
was rapid. But she did not remember or recognize any- 
thing as belonging to her previous existence. This re- 
mained strange to her as if it had belonged to another 
person. A sleep like that which had initiated the change 
restored her to her original condition. But she was totally 
oblivious of all she had experienced in the interval. For 
more than two years there was a periodic alternation of the 
two states. If in one of these states she had come to know 
any person, she had to renew her acquaintance with him, 
when she passed into the other. 

(c) The third group of cases is that in which dispositions 
connected with special kinds of experience are destroyed 
or disabled. The best illustrations are afforded by dis- 
eases of language, for which the technical term is aphasia. 
There is a special nervous arrangement for the coordina- 
tion of the movements of the throat and larynx in the 
articulation of words. This is situated in the third frontal 
convolution of the left hemisphere of the brain in right- 
handed persons and of the right hemisphere in left-handed 
persons. When this part of the brain is destroyed or 
damaged the power of pronouncing words is correspond- 
ingly impaired or abolished. There is another special 
nervous arrangement, which has also been localized, for 
the perception of spoken language, as such. When this 
is injured or destroyed, the general acuteness of hearing 
need not be at all affected. Spoken language is still 
heard as a confused noise, but not as language. The 
elementary sounds are all presented. But they are not 
so discriminated and grouped as to form words and sen- 
tences. Hence the patient cannot understand what is 
said to him, though he may be able to speak, read, and 
write. This is called word-deafness. A slighter or more 



36 BODY AND MIND 

restricted lesion of the same area may not give rise to 
word-deafness, but only to a failure to call to mind the 
sound of words when they are not actually heard. In 
cases of this kind words are lost in a definite order. First 
there are failures in the recall of proper names, then of 
other nouns, and only much more rarely of verbs, adjec- 
tives, and pronouns. The principle seems to be that those 
words are lost first which are least indispensable to the 
mind in framing corresponding thoughts. 1 

1 On the subject of the localization of cerebral functions the student 
may consult Halliburton's " Physiology," 4th ed., 1901 (J. Murray), Chapter 
XLVIII. 



CHAPTER V 

SENSATION 

We saw in Chapter I that sensations are psychical states 
inasmuch as they have actual existence only while they are 
actually experienced. We also pointed out that they are 
not subjective states, like attending and willing, but essen- 
tially objects. They are psychical objects. In order to 
complete our account of their distinctive nature we now 
add that they are psychical objects which normally come 
into being in consequence of the stimulation of afferent 
nerves conducting waves of excitement to the cerebral 
cortex. The excitement is initiated at the termination of 
the afferent nerves in external organs of sense, such as the 
skin, eye, or ear, or .in the surfaces of the internal organs 
of the body, such as the stomach. 

Sensory Revivals. — The various qualities of sense-expe- 
rience, when they have once been presented, may be 
mentally revivable without a recurrence of the stimulus 
which first gave rise to them. Having seen the color red, 
I can picture it in my mind's eye without actually seeing it. 
Having actually heard a certain sound, I can hear it again 
in my mind's ear without any stimulation of my bodily 
ear. Such revivals differ in important respects from actual 
sensations, and they ought not therefore to be called sensa- 
tions. They may be called sensory contents or sensory 
elements. 

37 



38 SENSATION 

Plan of Treatment. — In dealing with sensations my plan 
of treatment will be as follows : First, I shall say some- 
thing of the distinction between sensations as psychical 
states and the sensible qualities of external things. Next 
I shall refer to the physical and physiological conditions. 
I shall then give a general analysis of the nature of 
sensation. I shall draw attention to certain characters 
which sensations in general possess. Finally, I shall 
discuss the qualitative affinities of different kinds of sensa- 
tion and examine the distinction between the higher senses 
and the lower. 

Sensations vs. Sensible Qualities. — The distinction be- 
tween sensations and sensible qualities of external things 
is of fundamental importance. Consider again an illus- 
tration given in the first chapter. On looking at an 
orange I experience a sensation of yellow. The sensation 
did not exist before I began to look at the orange and it 
ceases when I look away. But the orange was yellow 
before I looked at it, and when I look away it continues to 
be yellow. Yet the sensation and the sensible quality do, 
so to speak, interpenetrate each other. They have a com- 
mon nature. The same quality which leads me to call 
the sensation one of yellow is also essential to the yellow- 
ness of the orange. Only in the first case it is regarded 
as a qualification of my psychical state and in the second 
as expressing the nature of something existing indepen- 
dently of me and of the vicissitudes of my sensuous 
experience. This something thus represented in terms of 
my sense-experience, but existing independently of it, is 
what I call an orange. We shall have something to say 
later on about the origin and development of this distinc- 
tion between sensation and sensible quality. Here it will 



SENSATIONS VS. SENSIBLE QUALITIES 39 

be sufficient to draw attention to one point. It is never 
our sense-experience in its concrete fullness which quali- 
fies the external thing. Only certain partial features or 
aspects of it enter into the constitution of the external 
world. While I look at the orange my visual sensation of 
yellow may vary in intensity and tinge of yellowness with 
the varying illumination or with the state of my eye. If I 
were attending to my sensation as such, I should note these 
changes and regard them as psychically real. But when 
I am occupied with the orange, I in part ignore them alto- 
gether and in part treat them as irrelevant — as making no 
difference to the orange itself. The artist in depicting the 
orange would have to note very carefully these differences 
of sensible appearance. Again, the visual appearance of 
the object varies very greatly in extent according to my 
distance from it. As I recede from the orange the yellow 
patch, considered merely as a sense-presentation, grows 
smaller and smaller until it vanishes altogether. But 
within wide limits of variation we normally fail to notice 
these differences in the extent of the sensation. We are 
interested in the real size of things perceived, and this 
remains the same while the sensation varies. Hence we 
have learned to ignore these variations. Patients blind from 
birth who have recovered their sight by an operation do 
notice such differences. They find it hard to understand 
how a house seen at a distance can be spacious enough 
to contain a man seen at their side. The artist has to 
educate himself to observe visual sensations as distin- 
guished from external things. For he can only produce 
his effects by giving those who look at his pictures sensa- 
tions similar to those which they would experience in 
looking at the real things. 

It would carry us too far to adduce more illustrations. 



4-0 SENSATION 

The two points to be borne in mind are : (i) That sensible 
qualities are qualities of sensation regarded as expressing 
the nature of something existing independently of the 
mind which experiences the sensation. (2) That only cer- 
tain partial aspects and features of our sense-experience 
assume this function. The rest can be ignored when 
our interest is concentrated on the external world. But it 
is the business of the psychologist who is dealing with 
sensations as psychical states to fix attention on them. 

Stimulus and Sensation. — A full treatment of the physi- 
cal and physiological conditions of sensation would include 
a detailed account of the special sense organs. For this 
we have no space. It will be sufficient to refer to one point 
of general interest bearing on the connection of stimulus 
and sensation. The general nature of the sensation ex- 
cited depends not on the nature of the stimulus but on 
the structure of the sense organ and its nervous connec- 
tions. However the organ of vision is stimulated, if any 
sensation results, it is one of light or color. Light and 
color sensations arise from pressure on the eye or a 
narcotic in the blood, as well as from vibrations of the 
ether. In a case of assault, a court of justice was inclined to 
take seriously the plaintiff's statement that he had seen his 
assailant in the illumination produced by a blow on the 
eye. Even in the absence of all external stimulation, we 
have a diffused sensation of gray due to purely organic 
conditions which probably affect the brain directly and 
not the eye. The case is the same for the ear as for the 
eye. Sensations of sound equally result, whether the organ 
of hearing is excited by mechanical or electrical stimula- 
tion or by vibrations of the particles of the air. In the 
skin temperature sensations arise only when certain nerve- 



CHARACTERS WHICH SENSATIONS POSSESS 4 1 

endings are stimulated, distinct from those which yield 
pressure-sensations. When a peppermint rolled on the 
tongue gives rise to sensations of sweetness, temperature, 
and pressure, it does so by acting on nerve-endings which 
are distinct for each kind of experience. It is disputed 
how far the general principle applies to specific varieties of 
sensation within the range of each sense. But in the case 
of the ear, at least, there is good reason for holding that 
there are distinct nerve-endings for tones of different 
pitch. 

Characters which Sensations in General Possess. — The 

characters which sensations in general possess are : 
(1) Quality, (2) Intensity, (3) Protensity. 

Such distinctions as that between blue and red, between 
sound and color, between a tone of one pitch and a tone 
of another pitch, between a salt taste and a bitter, or 
between taste and smell, are distinctions of quality. Defi- 
nition is of course impossible. When two groups of sensa- 
tions so differ in quality that they cannot be regarded as 
species of a common genus, the difference may be called 
one of kind. Sounds and colors are different kinds of 
sensation. They are not only different, but disparate or 
incomparable in quality. 

Intensity presupposes quality. It is more or less of 
the same quality. Thus a tone of a given pitch may vary 
in loudness. The sensation of cold is always more or 
less cold. A sweet taste is more or less sweet. Intensity 
is a quite peculiar kind of quantity. Its special characteris- 
tic is that it cannot be divided into distinct parts, and that 
we cannot even conceive it to be so divided. We may say 
that one sensation of cold is more intense than another. 
But we cannot distinguish within the more intense cold 



42 SENSATION 

a part which is equal to the less intense cold and another 
by which it exceeds the less. 

The protensity of sensations is connected with their 
duration. A sensation of sound which has lasted three 
seconds is felt as different from a sensation of sound 
which has lasted only one second. Protensity is a better 
term than duration. For duration would naturally stand 
for the actual time which a sensation lasts as measured by 
the clock. Protensity stasds for the difference in our 
immediate experience of the sensation which is connected 
with its greater or less duration. 

Extensity is another general character of at least certain 
important kinds of sensation. But it will be more con- 
venient to notice this feature when we come to treat of 
the perception of extension. 

Different Classes of Sensation. — Passing now to the 
enumeration and comparison of the different classes of 
sensation, we may begin with the following provisional 
list : Sensations of sight, of hearing, of contact and press- 
ure ; those due to the varying states of muscles, joints, 
and tendons as dependent on the position and movement 
of the limbs ; sensations of smell, of taste, of temperature, 
and finally organic sensations. The last head requires 
some explanation. Under the term "organic sensation" are 
included sensations due to the state of the internal organs 
of the body, such as headache, thirst, muscular cramp, or 
fatigue, nausea, etc. Our general feeling of being well or 
ill is due to the whole mass of sensations arising from the 
general condition of the organism. Under organic sensa- 
tions are also included such sensations as arise from a 
bruise, a blow, or a cut. These experiences are indeed 
initiated by agencies external to the organism. But they 



THE QUALITATIVE AFFINITIES 43 

may equally well be produced by very different external 
agencies, and they persist often for a long time, and may 
even increase in intensity after the external agency has 
ceased to operate. A wound persists after the knife has 
been withdrawn, and along with the wound the pain of it. 

Qualitative Affinities of Sensation. — The classes of sen- 
sation which we have distinguished are marked off from 
each other by differences in the conditions of their origin 
and in the part which they play in our mental life. Besides 
this, some of them, such as those of sight, of hearing, of 
smell, and of touch, are so disparate in quality that we need 
not hesitate to rank them as radically distinct in kind. But 
between others more or less qualitative affinity is discern- 
ible. Experiences of heat and cold are ingredients of 
organic sensation. E.g. the cold thrill which runs down 
the back in certain emotional states, or the general glow 
produced by drinking a glass of brandy. There is also an 
unmistakable affinity between organic sensations in gen- 
eral and those of pressure. Indeed, the theory has been 
propounded that all organic sensations are resolvable into 
pressure and temperature experiences. This view may be 
accepted if we bear in mind that our organic experiences 
include very peculiar varieties of pressure-sensation. Hun- 
ger, thirst, fatigue, nausea, and toothache are not disparate 
from cutaneous sensations of contact, as they are from 
sensations of sound or color. But we cannot place them 
on the same level with such modifications of cutaneous 
pressure as roughness or smoothness. 

Muscle, joint, and tendon sensations are clearly akin to 
those of pressure. The two groups of sensations are 
united in ordinary experience as if they belonged to the 
same sense. They are only distinguishable by an effort of 



44 SENSATION 

analysis. Indeed, until comparatively recent times, they 
were not formally distinguished, at all. Further, when they 
are distinguished it seems impossible to discover any dif- 
ference of kind between them, such as marks off either 
from smells or sounds, or sounds from colors. 

There is also qualitative affinity and intimate union 
between smells and tastes. What in ordinary language are 
called tastes are to a very large extent odors. An onion 
is mistaken for an apple when it is neither seen nor smelled, 
but only tasted. The only sensations of taste, strictly 
understood, are the sweet, bitter, salt, sour, and alkaline. 

Higher and Lower Senses. — The various classes of sensa- 
tion may be arranged in a scale proceeding from the 
higher to the lower. Organic sensation is at the bottom 
of the scale, hearing and sight at the top. Between these 
are interposed in ascending order, sensations of tempera- 
ture, of taste, and smell, and tactual sensations, together 
with those due to the varying states of muscles, joints, and 
tendons. The relatively higher senses are more delicately 
discriminative than the lower. On the other hand, if we 
except hearing, they count for less as direct sources of 
pleasant or unpleasant feeling. In this respect, organic 
sensation is of altogether predominant importance. Even 
the pleasures and pains of the higher senses are very 
largely due to concomitant affections of our general 
organic sensibility. The depressing effect of the wind 
whistling down a chimney, the painful experience of hav- 
ing one's teeth set on edge by the scratching of a slate 
pencil, the faintness or nausea produced by certain odors, 
the enlivening influence of bright colors, are all in the 
main to be accounted for in this way. 

Another most important ground of the distinction be- 



HIGHER AND LOWER SENSES 45 

tween higher and lower lies in the kind of combination 
into which the various classes of sense-experience enter. 
There are two ways in which sensations may combine, so 
as to form a unity. They may combine like the various 
ingredients which comprise the complex odor of a drug- 
gist's shop, or like the bitterness, sweetness, and aroma of 
a cup of coffee. On the other hand, they may combine 
as colors do when they bound each other in space so as 
to constitute definite outlines, shapes, or patterns. The 
first of these modes of union is called fusion or blending. 
The term colligation has been proposed for it ; I prefer 
to call it grouping or arrangement. 

Fusion is characterized by the absence of any definite 
order among the constituents of the sensation complex. 
If the constituents are a, b, e, the a is not otherwise related 
to b than it is to c, or than b is to c. It is true that the 
several components are in various ways similar or dis- 
similar in quality or intensity. But these relations do not 
depend on the fusion. There is only one relation due to the 
fusion — the relation of being fused. The sweetness, bitter- 
ness, and aroma of the coffee are blended in the experience 
of drinking it. But the blending of the sweetness and 
aroma is not a relation distinct in character from the blend- 
ing of the sweetness and bitterness. The mode of union of 
any two sense-qualities of the blend is not itself a distinct 
presentation, having a positive character of its own. On 
the other hand, the meeting of adjacent colors does 
constitute a distinct presentation, — that of boundary or 
contour, which may vary in manifold ways according to 
circumstance. The meeting of a patch of red with sur- 
rounding gray is a definite shape, which may be square, 
triangular, or circular. The relation of the red to the gray 
is not that of the gray to the red. The red is within the 



46 SENSATION 

square, triangle, or circle ; the gray is outside. Further, 
the mode of grouping is largely independent of the sense- 
qualities grouped. We might substitute gray for red and 
red for gray, and yet have a triangle of precisely the same 
shape. 

Clearly, grouping is a kind of combination peculiarly 
characteristic of the higher senses. The eye, the ear, and 
the skin, together with muscle, joint, and tendon, consti- 
tute the organs of what may be called the shape senses ; 
the others are, comparatively speaking, shapeless. Simul- 
taneous grouping belongs, above all, to visual experience. 
In a much less degree it is found in experiences of 
cutaneous pressure. We feel the contours of objects 
pressing on the skin. But we do so vaguely, as we dis- 
cern shape and outline in twilight vision when all is gray. 
Other sensations, such as the organic, and those of smell, 
taste, and hearing, exhibit very little simultaneous group- 
ing. Smells occurring together are not grouped, but fused, 
and the same is, in the main, true of sounds. But sounds 
exhibit a remarkable development of successive grouping. 
The transitions between one sound and another have a 
definite and positive character comparable to the meeting 
of conterminous colors. A sequence of such transitions 
can combine in a unity analogous to that of the shapes 
presented to the eye. As in the case of the eye, so in 
that of the ear, the form of grouping is relatively inde- 
pendent of specific nature of the sense-material. A tune 
may remain the same in form although the pitch of every 
single note is changed, if the musical intervals between 
them are unaltered. Similarly with the rhythm of a line 
of verse. The sound of " Home they brought her warrior 
dead " is shaped like the sound of " Up they sprang and 
went away." The sound of " Smoking is not allowed in 



HIGHER AND LOWER SENSES 47 

the courts and grounds of the college" is shaped like that 
of a Latin hexameter. The only other sensations which 
exhibit successive grouping of similar definiteness and 
complexity are those which arise from muscles, joints, and 
tendons as they vary with movements of the body. Hence 
there is a formal affinity between the flow of sounds and 
the flow of these movement-sensations, which makes it 
possible for them to enter into peculiarly intimate union. 
When we speak there is a successive grouping not only 
of sounds uttered, but also, coincidently, of the sensations 
connected with the movements of articulation. Dancing 
to music is another good illustration. 



CHAPTER VI 

ATTENTION 

Attention may be defined as interest determining cog- 
nitive process. When I am interested in an object, the 
satisfaction of my interest may depend partly or wholly 
on a fuller, more distinct or more prolonged presence of 
the object to cognitive consciousness. So far as this is 
the case the self-fulfilment of my interest is attention. In 
attending I do not ultimately seek or require any change 
in my object which does not consist in its becoming better 
known to me or more familiar to me. 

Unity of Attention-process. — Can we attend to more 
than one thing at once ? The question is ambiguous. It 
may mean : Can there be two separate and disconnected 
attention-processes within the stream of individual con- 
sciousness ? The answer to this question is that such 
division of attention does not occur normally, though 
something like it is found in certain pathological cases. 
In the second place, the meaning may be : Can the same 
attention-process be simultaneously concerned with a plu- 
rality of different objects ? The answer is: Yes, if the dif- 
ferent objects are presented as partial features or aspects of 
some kind of whole, — if they are thought of as in some 
way connected with each other. Otherwise, we cannot either 
simultaneously or successively attend in the same attention- 
process to different objects. For the unity of the atten- 
tion-process is unity of interest, and unity of interest exists 



UNITY OF ATTENTION-PROCESS 49 

only in so far as we are and continue to be interested in 
the same object. 

We may illustrate as follows : Suppose that I am count- 
ing a heap of stones, one by one. I am throughout inter- 
ested in finding out how many there are, and this unity of 
interest constitutes the unity of the attention-process. I 
attend to each stone in turn. But I do not attend to each 
in isolation. I attend to each as being a unit in the sum- 
total. If I count the stones in groups of three instead of 
one by one, I may be said to be simultaneously attending 
to three different things. But I attend to them as forming 
a single numerical group, and to this group as forming 
part of the total number of stones. 

Ambiguity of the Term " Object of Attention." — In deal- 
ing with attention, it is always important to be clear as to 
the real nature of the object attended to. Ordinary lan- 
guage is often inexact or ambiguous in this respect. If, 
while I was counting the stones, some one asked me what 
I was attending to, I should probably reply, To this 
heap of stones. In all likelihood I should have given the 
same answer if I had been examining the stones from a 
geological point of view. Yet the object of attention is 
very different in the two cases. The markings and texture 
of the stones form an important part of the geological 
object. But they are nothing to me while I am merely 
interested in counting. In the " pursuit of a prey by a 
man or a beast," the total object of attention is not the 
mere animal pursued, but the "whole pursuit of the animal. 
And hence every detail in the scene which in any way 
bears on this pursuit, whether as contributing to it or as 
hindering it, is or may be included within the object 
attended to. Or, let us take the instance where a woman's 



50 ATTENTION 

object in going to a party is in fact to promote the success 
of her daughter. We might say here naturally that her 
daughter was throughout the time the real obj ect of her atten- 
tion. But this way of speaking, if convenient, is not correct. 
Her true, ' real object ' is the observing, the doing, and 
the preventing this and that thing in regard to her daughter 
— in a certain interest. And hence it is hard to say what 
detail in the scene may as condition or circumstance . . . 
fail to be included and be attention's total object." 1 

The Focus of Attention. — In the examples just given 
attention is successively engaged with the partial features, 
phases, and aspects of a single total object. At any stage 
in the process, some partial feature, phase, or aspect of 
the whole is relatively prominent and definite, the rest 
being only indeterminately apprehended. Now the fea- 
ture or features which at any moment are thus specially 
emphatic and determinate, are said to be in the foais 
of attention. While I am counting the stones, my atten- 
tion's object includes the whole heap as something to be 
numbered. But at any given stage, what is in the focus 
of attention is the particular stone I am taking into 
account at that moment and the particular number which 
is formed by adding it to the stones previously counted. 

Various Kinds of Attention. — We may broadly distin- 
guish two sorts of Attention, the Voluntary and the Non- 
voluntary. In so far as an object excites interest on its 
own account, attention to it is called nonvoluntary. In so 
far as an object interests us merely as a means to an end, 
attention to it is voluntary. Nonvoluntary attention is 
either enforced or spontaneous. Voluntary attention is 
either explicitly or implicitly voluntary. Thus we have : — 

1 F. S. Bradley in Mind, N. S., No. 41, p. 23. 



VARIOUS KINDS OF ATTENTION 5 1 

Attention 

I 

I I 

Nonvoluntary Voluntary 



Enforced Spontaneous Implicitly Vol. Explicitly Vol. 

An example will help us to understand these distinc- 
tions. A student is working at a Greek play in order to 
pass an examination. Apart from such an ulterior end he 
would not be concerning himself with a Greek book at all. 
It is only or mainly because he intends if possible to pass 
the examination that he is attending to it at all. Hence 
his attention is said to be voluntary, as depending on a 
volition. It would really be better to call it volitional. 
For there is a sense in which it is involuntary rather than 
voluntary, inasmuch as the student is doing what he does 
not like. But the term "voluntary" is imposed on us by 
current usage. 

As the student is pursuing his irksome task, the sound 
of a neighboring piano suddenly assails his ears ; some 
one is playing scales. The noise forcibly challenges his 
attention, apart from any volition on his part. In other 
words, he attends nonvoluntarily. Further, his attention is 
enforced, not spontaneous. It is enforced by the abrupt- 
ness, the intensity, and in general by the obtrusiveness of 
the sensation. 

This interruption being over, the student again turns 
to his book. Shortly after, he hears some one speaking. 
The sound may be less loud than other sounds which 
he has failed to notice. It may be less loud than other 
simultaneous sounds. But it is the voice, let us say, of the 
woman he loves. Again he attends apart from any voli- 



52 ATTENTION 

tion, perhaps even against his will. But attention is not, 
in this case, enforced by the obtrusiveness of a sense-im- 
pression, or any analogous condition. It follows from his 
natural bias and his preformed interests. In other words, 
it is spontaneous. The distinction between implicitly and 
explicitly voluntary attention still remains to be explained. 
Our student is attending to the Greek play in order to pass 
an examination. But it may be difficult for him to keep 
this end in view with sufficient steadiness and vividness. 
The contents of the book before him have no sort of 
intrinsic connection with the passing of an examination. 
Hence in fixing his thoughts on the book he is likely to 
lose sight of the examination and its significance. So far 
as this happens his attention will flag, because the deriva- 
tive interest required to sustain it ceases to operate. The 
student then again thinks of the examination and pulls 
himself together, saying, " This won't do ; I will pay 
attention to my book." Following out this express voli- 
tion to attend, he turns his mind once more to his task. 
Here, Attention is explicitly voluntary because it follows 
on an express volition to attend. On the other hand his 
sense of the importance of the impending examination may 
have so strong a hold on him that such self-reminders are 
unnecessary. In that case he may go on attending without 
framing express volitions to attend. His attention is volun- 
tary because he is not interested in his object except in 
reference to an ulterior end. But it is implicitly not explic- 
itly so, because there is no express volition to attend. 

In education, the teacher should, in the first place, aim 
at making voluntary attention implicit rather than explicit. 
Here the selection of ulterior motives for attending is im- 
portant. The motives should have as much connection 
with the subject-matter of the lesson as possible. In the 



VARIOUS KINDS OF ATTENTION 53 

second place the final aim ought to be to convert voluntary 
attention into spontaneous, by inducing direct instead of 
derivative interest in the subject-matter. Sometimes vol- 
untary attention is called active, and nonvoluntary attention 
is called passive. These terms are appropriate ; but their 
application must not be misunderstood. They do not 
refer to the intrinsic nature of the attention-process, but to 
the way in which it is initiated or maintained. The atten- 
tion-process itself is always a mental activity, the self-ful- 
filment of an interest. When a sudden sound forcibly 
challenges my attention, I am so far passive. But the 
obtrusiveness of the sense-impression is not the process of 
attending"; it is its antecedent condition. Attention is the 
subjective attitude of inquiry, asking, "What is this?" or 
simply "What?" In scholastic language it is an attempt 
to cognize " quiddity " or " whatness." That sensuous 
obtrusiveness is not itself attention is shown by the fact 
that when it is too great it may for a time destroy the pos- 
sibility of attending. If the report of a cannon in my 
immediate neighborhood suddenly and unexpectedly assails 
my ear, I am for some time incapable of attending to it. 
I am incapable of inquiring into " whatness." The " what " 
is swallowed up in the "that." So in cases of intense and 
sudden pain, our experience for the moment simply is the 
painful sensation without the subjective reaction of attend- 
ing. In cases of spontaneous attention, it is plain that we 
may be and often are mentally active in a very high degree. 
We can only be said to be passive in the sense that the 
attention-process is not initiated or kept going by a volition 
directed to an ulterior end. On the other hand in explicitly 
voluntary attention, we are often chiefly active in making 
ourselves attend. In actually attending, the mental activ- 
ity may be comparatively faint and intermittent. Indeed, 



54 ATTENTION 

that is precisely the reason why recurrent volitions to attend 
are required. 

Inattention. 

(i) Total Inattention. — When in ordinary language we 
say that a person is inattentive, we very rarely mean that 
he is not attending to anything at all. We usually refer 
to some special object which he might be expected to 
attend to, and we mean that he is not attending to this. 
We call a man inattentive if he does not listen to what we 
are saying to him. We by no means imply that he is not 
attending to anything else. In fact, absolute inattention 
is quite exceptional in normal waking life. As we have 
seen, it may be induced by the shock of a sudden and 
violent excitement. It also occurs in such states as that of 
going to sleep. Otherwise, in normal waking life, we seem 
always to be attending to something or other. Attention 
may ramble fitfully from object to object, touching each 
superficially and transiently. But it seems to be nearly 
always present in some form and degree. When no other 
interest comes into play, there is generally present the 
interest in occupying ourselves with something or other, 
— the interest which when it fails of satisfaction gives rise 
to the disagreeable experience of being bored, or being 
"at a loose end." 

(2) Relative Inattention. — Though absolute inattention 
is thus rare, what may be called relative inattention is a 
constant feature of our mental life. Objects are constantly 
present to consciousness which are not attended to because 
the mind is otherwise occupied. 

Such objects of inattention fall into two groups. 
{a) Those which do not enter into the constitution of the 
attention process at all. (o) Those which do directly con- 



INATTENTION 55 

tribute to determine the attention-process, though they are 
not themselves attended to. 

(a) Suppose that my mind is occupied in reading a book. 
I take no notice of the margin of the page before me, or 
of the candle flame in front of me, or of the surface of the 
table on which the book is placed, or of the clothes in con- 
tact with my skin, or of the sound of the clock which is 
ticking behind me. Yet some or all of these objects are in 
a manner present to consciousness. My total cognitive ex- 
perience would be very different if I were reading my book 
in the open air, lying on the grass. But these objects, 
though present to consciousness, are not attended to. 
They belong to the outlying field of inattention. It is 
characteristic of them that they are in no way developed 
in consciousness. There is no successive presentation of 
their various features and aspects. They do not reproduce 
other presentations. They do not form part of a stream 
of thought or train of ideas. When we speak of the 
stream of consciousness we refer to attentive conscious- 
ness. The contents of the field of inattention remain 
fragmentary and motionless, or vary only with a change 
of external stimulation. 

(&) The second class of objects of inattention consists 
of presentations which, without being themselves attended 
to, none the less directly determine the attention-process 
as cooperating factors. They are not attended to because 
they are uninteresting in their own intrinsic nature and 
existence. They determine the attention-process because 
they signify or suggest what is interesting. The use of 
words in speaking, hearing, reading, and writing forms a 
good illustration. We are for the most part not attentive 
to the words themselves, as articulate sounds or as printed 
or written characters. But we do attend to their meaning, 



56 ATTENTION 

and as suggesting this meaning they are cooperating factors 
in the attention-process. Similarly, we are to a large extent 
inattentive to the varying magnitude and outline of the 
visible appearance of things seen at different distances 
and from varying points of view. But the optical sensa- 
tion suggests the real size and magnitude, and to this we 
do attend. 

Means of fixing Attention. — There are very many means 
which we are constantly using in order to help or facilitate 
attention to an object. Thus when the thing in which we 
are interested is present to the senses we adjust our sense- 
organs so as to procure from it relatively intense or finely 
differentiated sensation. We follow the outlines of the 
object with our eyes, bringing its parts successively within 
the area of distinct vision. We may actively touch or 
taste, or we may sniff the air for an odor. • In very close 
attention to sensible objects the body is maintained in a 
tense and motionless posture. Even the movements of 
breathing are sometimes suspended. This fixed and motion- 
less attitude facilitates attention by excluding disturbing 
influences which might otherwise interfere with it. It has 
been maintained that Attention simply consists in motor 
adjustments of the kind described. But such a view is 
quite untenable. The adjustment of the eyes for distant 
vision is no more essential to attention to the thing looked 
at than the adjustment of an opera glass. None the less 
these natural aids and instruments of attention are of 
great importance. 

Effects of Attention. — The primary effect of attention is 
a more complete or more distinct cognition of its object, 
or at least increased familiarity with it. But its efficiency 



EFFECTS OF ATTENTION 57 

in this respect does not depend merely on its own intensity. 
It depends on the nature of the object and on the amount 
of attention which this or similar objects have received in 
the past. An equal degree of attention will be more suc- 
cessful in deciphering the good writing of Jones than the 
bad writing of Smith. But after a long study of Smith's 
script I may be able to make it out almost as readily and 
fully as that of Jones. 

Another effect sometimes ascribed to Attention is that 
of intensifying sensation. But this view is probably due 
to a confusion between intensity and clearness or distinct- 
ness. If, in attending, we intensify sensation at all, we do 
so only within narrow limits. Otherwise we should often 
defeat our own purpose by altering the very object which 
we are interested in knowing. If I want to know precisely 
how loud a sound is or how bright a color is, I attend to 
it. But this procedure would stultify itself if the very act 
of attending made the sound louder or the color brighter. 
As a matter of fact, we can follow with increasing atten- 
tion the gradual fading away of a sound into silence. 

There is, however, a sense in which Attention strengthens 
its object. Ceteris paribus, the more attention an object 
receives the more effective it becomes in recalling other 
presentations, and in otherwise determining the stream of 
thought and action. If I transiently and faintly note the 
presence of a book on my shelves, as I may in looking for 
another book, the presentation of it may have no appre- 
ciable influence on the subsequent course of my conscious 
life. But if I attend to it more keenly and persistently, it 
will call up other ideas, connected, perhaps, with its con- 
tents, or its author, or the circumstances under which I 
bought it. I shall probably take it out of the shelves, look 
at it, and perhaps begin to read passages in it. 



CHAPTER VII 

RETENTIVENESS, ASSOCIATION, AND REPRODUCTION 

Attention and Retention. — Retentiveness is the most 
general name for the fact that prior experiences produce 
residual dispositions which determine subsequent expe- 
riences. In the present chapter, retentiveness will be 
considered especially in relation to the way in which it 
affects a recurrence of the same attention-process. By 
the same attention-process I mean renewed attention to 
the same total object. 

The essential effect of attention is to make its object 
in some way better known. But its efficiency does not 
merely depend on its own intensity and duration. The 
nature of the object, as we have seen, is an important 
condition. You can make out the hand-writing of your 
friend Jones at a glance. But that of your friend Smith 
may not be clearly decipherable after prolonged and stren- 
uous scrutiny. Efficiency also depends on the amount 
of previous attention given to the same or similar objects. 
After long familiarity you may become able to decipher 
Smith's manuscript without delay or difficulty. The 
strokes, curves, and dots are no longer chaotic. They 
are at once so discriminated and grouped as to form 
recognizable words and sentences. Similarly, the seaman 
discerns the "loom of the land," where a landsman can 
descry nothing but an indefinite haze above the horizon 
line. Helen Keller, who lost the senses of sight and 

53 



ATTENTION AND RETENTION 59 

hearing in early infancy, can make out what a person is 
saying by feeling the motion of lips and throat. She can 
also recognize persons by the mere contact of their hands. 

In all such cases the result of previous attention is 
retained and carried over into subsequent attention-pro- 
cesses having the same or a partially similar object. The 
work which has already been done does not need to be 
done over again. The residual disposition enables us to 
start afresh where we previously left off. 

Retentiveness is also essential to an attention-process 
while it is actually taking place. Take, for example, the 
intelligent utterance of a sentence. If, at the end of the 
sentence, the conscious attitude of the speaker were not 
determined by the residual effect of his experience in 
uttering the previous words, his psychical state would be 
the same as if he had not spoken the sentence at all. 
Something like this occurs in certain pathological cases. 
In a case of senile decay, which came under my own 
observation, a lady went on reading the same nursery 
rhymes almost interminably, evidently finding them as 
novel as ever on each repetition. In order that mental 
advance may take place, the disposition left behind by 
previous psychical process must continuously persist as 
the basis and starting-point of further progress. 

In the process by which dispositions are formed they 
also acquire certain connections with each other which are 
called "Associations." We shall here consider only such 
associations as are acquired in the course of the same 
attention-process. Other questions relating to this topic 
will be dealt with when we come to treat of "trains of 
ideas." 

In attending, we successively focus various features, 
aspects, and phases of our total object. When on a sub- 



60 RETENTIVENESS, ASSOCIATION, AND REPRODUCTION 

sequent occasion we again notice some partial feature of 
the object, others emerge successively into the focus of 
attention. Such mental reinstatement is said to be due to 
association and the reinstatement itself is also called repro- 
duction, revival, or recall. I have often attended to the 
letters of the alphabet in a certain order. The sight of 
the letters ABC now suggests to my mind the succeeding 
letters D E F. The letters D E F are said to be repro- 
duced by association. 

What is Association ? — We must now determine more 
precisely what this term " Association " means. It is most 
important to bear in mind that it does not stand for any 
actual psychical process. Reproduction is an actual psy- 
chical process, but association is not. Association is an 
acquired connection of dispositions, and like the dispositions 
connected, it is formed in course of conscious experience, 
and it is a condition determining subsequent conscious 
experience. But as the dispositions themselves fall out- 
side of conscious experience, so their union falls outside 
of conscious experience. Both the dispositions and their 
associations persist when we are sound asleep. 1 

I hear some one utter the words, " Sing a song of six- 
pence," and then stop short. Almost inevitably I recall the 
following words, "A pocketful of rye." What does this in- 
volve ? I must have previously heard the words, "A pocket- 
ful of rye," and the previous hearing must have left behind it 
a disposition persisting through the interval of their absence 
from consciousness. There must also be a similarly per- 
sistent disposition left behind by a previous hearing of the 
words, " Sing a song of sixpence." Further, there must 

1 The union of presentations in consciousness, through which associations 
are generated, should be distinguished from the associations themselves. 



HOW ASSOCIATIONS ARE FORMED 6 1 

be an acquired connection or union of these dispositions, 
and this union or connection must also have persisted in 
the interval during which my mind was occupied with 
other things. The two dispositions must have remained 
united in one complex disposition capable of being re- 
excited as a whole by a recurrence of only a part of the 
experiences which concurred to produce it. 

And there is a corresponding physiological side to all 
this. The dispositions are physiological as well as psy- 
chical dispositions, and their union is a physiological as 
well as a mental fact. We may use the term "psycho- 
physical " as a name for the psychical and the physiologi- 
cal aspects taken conjointly. Association is an acquired 
psychophysical connection between psychophysical disposi- 
tions or between a psychophysical disposition and a purely 
physiological arrangement. This second alternative is very 
important. It includes all cases of what may be called 
"motor association." The sight of a word may prompt 
me to pronounce it, as in reading aloud. This is due 
to a previously acquired connection between the psycho- 
physical disposition excited by the sight of the word and 
the special nervous and muscular arrangements for pro- 
ducing the movements of articulation. Motor associations 
are, as we shall see, of immense importance in our mental 
life — especially at the perceptual level. Learning to walk, 
to shoot, to fence, in general the acquirement of bodily 
aptitudes and dexterities, depends on the forming of appro- 
priate motor associations. 

How Associations are formed. — We have now to examine 
the conditions which determine the formation of associative 
connections during the course of a continuous attention- 
process. The main points to be considered are: (i) the 



62 RETENTIVENESS, ASSOCIATION, AND REPRODUCTION 

degree of unity which belongs to the process ; (2) the near- 
ness or remoteness in time of the presentations which 
successively emerge into the focus of attention; (3) the 
order of the successive presentations ; (4) the frequency 
with which the attention-process is repeated. 

(1) The unity of the attention-process depends on the 
unity of its total object. But this may vary very greatly 
in degree in different cases. There is a corresponding 
variation in the facility with which associations are formed 
and in their strength and persistence. 

In trying to learn by heart a series of senseless syllables, 
the total object has a low degree of unity. The syllables 
are connected as being all articulate sounds and as form- 
ing a temporal series which is to be learned for a certain 
purpose. But their union is far looser than that of words 
combined in sentences so as to convey a connected meaning, 
and this unity becomes still more intimate if the words are 
arranged in rhythmic sequences, as in poetry. Professor 
Ebbinghaus found that on the average he had to repeat a 
series of thirty-six syllables fifty-five times in order to say 
them over from memory without an error. He required 
from six to seven repetitions in the case of each stanza of 
Schiller's translation of the "^Eneid." Each stanza con- 
tains on the average fifty-six words or groups of words with 
a relatively independent sense. Deducting articles, prepo- 
sitions, and pronouns, from thirty-six to forty independent 
words are left. Hence Ebbinghaus infers that his power 
of learning Schiller's verse is eight or nine times as great 
as his power of learning series of senseless syllables. A 
comparison between the number of syllables in the stanza 
of poetry and in the nonsense series is not practicable. 
For in learning intelligible sentences the mere number of 
syllables seems to make virtually no difference. A sen- 



HOW ASSOCIATIONS ARE FORMED 63 

tence of twelve words of one syllable is learned in the same 
number of repetitions as a sentence of twelve words of two 
syllables. 

Certain experiments on French school children are of 
interest here. The children had to write out after one 
hearing, sometimes a series of disconnected words, some- 
times short sentences. Out of seven disconnected words 
they were able to reproduce only five on the average. Out 
of a sentence of thirty-eight words, divisible into seven- 
teen groups with relatively independent meaning, they 
could reproduce fifteen such groups. Twenty-four such 
groups were reproduced out of a sentence containing twenty- 
eight, and consisting of seventy-eight words. In each 
case the parts retained were such as expressed the essential 
framework of meaning. Those omitted were in general 
more loosely connected with the unity of the whole : they 
consisted mainly of comparatively unessential amplifica- 
tion — ornamental epithets and the like. 

This dropping out of insignificant links illustrates a 
general principle. Ceteris paribus, the most strongly asso- 
ciated dispositions correspond to those items which are 
most important to the general structure of the total 
object. 

(2) This point is to be borne in mind in considering the 
effect of proximity or contiguity. According to the old view, 
which is still more or less current, the one indispensable con- 
dition for the formation of associative ties was simultaneity 
or immediate succession. This is certainly false. We 
are constantly doing what the school children did in the 
experiment referred to. In the process of recall we drop 
out details which are comparatively unimpressive or irrele- 
vant to the dominant interest. The mind passes from 
one salient point to another, skipping over what is rela- 



64 RETENTIVENESS, ASSOCIATION, AND REPRODUCTION 

lively insignificant. If this were not so, it would take us 
the whole of to-day to recall the events of yesterday. 

None the less, contiguity is a very important condition. 
Other things equal, a presentation will reproduce presenta- 
tions which have occurred simultaneously with it or immedi- 
ately subsequent to it, rather than others which were 
separated from it by an interval of time otherwise occu- 
pied. And it will reproduce those separate from it by a 
shorter interval rather than the more remote. 

The importance of proximity is most conspicuous when 
the unity of the total object is loose, and when the succes- 
sive items are approximately on the same level of interest. 
These conditions are fulfilled in the learning of series of 
unmeaning syllables. But even in this case, it has been 
indirectly demonstrated that associations are formed when 
the syllables are not immediately contiguous in time. The 
method followed is first to learn certain series so as to be 
able to repeat them without error and then to learn other 
series formed out of the first by regularly omitting every 
other syllable, or two syllables, or three syllables. Thus if 
we represent a primary series by the numbers i, 2, 3, 4, 5, 
6, 7, 8, 9, 10, etc., the corresponding derivative series might 
be 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, etc., or 1,4, 6, 10, etc. New syllables were 
intended to make the derivative series of the same length 
as the primary. The number of repetitions required to 
learn the derivative sequences was then compared with the 
number required to learn the primary. It was found that 
in every case the derivative sequences required fewer 
repetitions than the primary. The saving was greatest 
when only single links were omitted and diminished rapidly 
and progressively for the omission of 2, 3, or 4 links. 
Various precautions and tests were used which exclude 
any doubt that the greater facility in learning the deriva- 



HOW ASSOCIATIONS ARE FORMED 65 

tive series was due to associations between items more or 
less remote from each other in the primary series. 

(3) The next condition which we have to consider is the 
order of presentation. It is often asserted that association 
does not work backward, or in other words, that presenta- 
tions are only reproduced in the order in which they have 
been originally attended to. Undoubtedly, this is the pre- 
vailing tendency, and it is particularly strong where there 
has been frequent repetition in the same order. Hence 
the great difficulty of saying the Lord's Prayer backwards. 
But we have here to do only with a predominant tendency 
and not with an absolute rule. It is shown by experimen- 
tal evidence that when a series of nonsense syllables has 
been learnt by heart, a much fewer number of repeti- 
tions is needed to learn the same series in an inverted 
order. The backward working of association may also be 
of a more direct nature. A presentation may recall a 
prior link with which it is intimately connected, rather 
than a forward link with which it is more loosely connected. 
There is a neat illustration of this in certain experiments 
with nonsense syllables alternately accented and unaccented 
in a trochaic rhythm. After a series had been learnt so 
that the subject could just reproduce it without error, some 
minutes were allowed to elapse. The experimenter then 
presented isolated syllables to the subject and required him 
to name the first syllables which they suggested. When the 
syllable shown was accented it almost always reproduced 
the next following unaccented syllable of the next trochee. 
When it was unaccented it almost as frequently reproduced 
the previous accented syllable of the same trochee. 

(4) The effect of repetition is well known, and it has 
already been incidentally illustrated. Its relative impor- 
tance is greater as the interest is less intense and the 



66 RETENTIVENESS, ASSOCIATION, AND REPRODUCTION 

unity of the total object less intimate. It has been found 
that repetitions more or less immediately following one 
another yield less enduring associations than those which 
are separated by considerable intervals of time. In learn- 
ing a series of nonsense syllables, associations are less 
firmly established by twenty -four consecutive repetitions 
than by four repetitions a day continued for twenty-six 
days. This division again yields a less favorable result 
than two repetitions a day continued for twelve days. 
The conditions of the experiment show that the results 
can only be accounted for if we suppose that older asso- 
ciations are more strengthened by repetition than those 
which have been more recently formed. 

The Forms of Reproduction. — We now pass from the 
conditions under which associations are formed to their 
effects in conscious process. In other words, we have to 
consider the various forms of recall or reproduction. Of 
these we may distinguish four : {a) Free or explicit revival 
occurring directly, (b) Free or explicit reinstatement oc- 
curring indirectly through motor associations, (c) Nascent 
or implicit revival. 

(a) In free or explicit reproduction the several items of 
previous experience emerge into consciousness with a 
mutual distinctness and independence, such as they pos- 
sessed in their original occurrence. Where the revival is 
direct they take the form of mental images, copying actual 
sensations in their qualities and forms of combinations. 
In our previous illustration the words " A pocketful of 
rye " are recalled in this way. Each word is separately 
and successively heard by the mind's ear as it was 
originally by the bodily ear. Here the words are sup- 
posed to be merely mentally recalled by direct as- 



THE FORMS OK REPRODUCTION 6 J 

sociation with the foregoing words, " Sing a song of 
sixpence." 

(b) But another alternative is possible. Preformed asso- 
ciation might lead me straightway to utter the words aloud 
without preliminary mental rehearsal. In that case there 
would be free or explicit reinstatement. But it would take 
place indirectly through movements depending on motor 
association ; and it would take the form of sensations pro- 
duced anew, not of reproduced mental images. This form 
of free reinstatement is peculiarly characteristic of per- 
ceptual process as distinguished from trains of ideas. 

(c) If we are to account fully for the influence of past 
experience on present thought and action we must lay 
emphasis on another form of reproduction distinct both 
from revival, in the form of a sequence of ideal representa- 
tions, and from reinstatement through motor activity follow- 
ing the lines of preformed motor associations. It is an 
all-pervading fact of our mental life that past experience 
also works in a way which may be called implicit. With- 
out being itself recalled in distinct detail, it invests the 
details which actually are presented at the moment, with 
a certain relational significance, a sense of their meaning 
and bearings. For instance, as I am now writing, what is 
present to my attentive consciousness in the way of sensa- 
tion or mental imagery may be only one or two words as 
seen or mentally heard and articulated ; but these sensa- 
tions and images have for me a meaning which is not 
itself formulated in sensations, in images, not even in 
other words ; they have a relational import due to their 
preformed associations and to their place in the context of 
my discourse. 

In general, the preacquired knowledge which deter- 
mines our present thought is only to a relatively small 



68 RETENTIVENESS, ASSOCIATION, AND REPRODUCTION 

extent present to consciousness in distinguishable detail. 
To a far larger extent it is operative implicitly. We are, 
for instance, constantly proceeding on what are called 
unconscious assumptions — assumptions which often are 
not formulated in consciousness until they are falsified. 
We speak to a man on the assumption that he is capable 
of hearing, and we only wake up to the fact that we 
are making an assumption when he turns out to be deaf. 
I may meet a friend and begin to talk to him on some 
political topic, taking for granted that he agrees with 
me ; I find that he does not, and only then does my 
implicit presupposition enter explicit consciousness. The 
fact that I am at present in Oxford and that it is vacation 
time colors my whole view of things and persistently 
determines my behavior and my trains of ideas ; but I 
only rarely say to myself, " I am in Oxford and it is vaca- 
tion time," or otherwise formulate these facts in conscious- 
ness. In signing a check I appreciate the significance of 
my act without calling to mind the successive details which 
constitute its significance, such as the presentation of the 
check by somebody, and the clerk paying out my money 
over the counter. Mr. Clay, the author of an unduly 
neglected book, "The Alternative," gives a very good 
example of an unconscious assumption. A waiter twice 
entered the room in which he was breakfasting by the 
same door and made his exit by another. Mr. Clay took 
what was in fact the same waiter for another, a twin 
brother. The general appearance of the building had led 
him to apprehend the room as having only one door; 
but he had never formulated the judgment, " There is only 
one door," or indeed mentally raised the question in any 
form. 

Implied revival enters into all recognition of a whole 



THE FORMS OF REPRODUCTION 69 

through some partial feature of it. Thus, when I hear the 
words " Sing a song of sixpence," they come before my 
consciousness as belonging to a certain familiar context. 
They do so at once, before I actually recall the following 
words, and each of these, as I am in the act of reproducing 
it, is recognized as only a fragment of the same specific 
whole. My total impression would be very different if I 
were repeating Gray's " Elegy." For this kind of recog- 
nition it is not even necessary to be able to revive further 
details beyond those initially presented. I may recognize 
the whole nursery rhyme when I hear its first words with- 
out being able to call to mind the continuation. The con- 
tinuation as heard in the past is implicitly operative in 
determining recognition, though it cannot be reinstated 
in detail. In such a case I am generally able to reject 
wrong continuations, either occurring to myself or sug- 
gested by others, and immediately to identify the right one 
when it is presented to me. This is a typical case. In 
general, whatever is given in detailed experience is appre- 
hended as a fragment of a wider group or system which is 
not presented in determinate detail. Suppose that I catch 
a glimpse of the back of a friend of mine as he is just dis- 
appearing round the corner of a street. What is explicitly 
presented as a sensuous datum is merely the fugitive and 
fragmentary view of my friend's back. This visual ap- 
pearance is recognized, and I also at the same time recog- 
nize my friend by means of it. In part the recognition 
may consist in recalling mental images of his face or of 
the sound of his voice and the like. But before such 
detailed recall takes place, and also while it is in process 
of taking place, the object of the total experience has for 
me a distinctive peculiarity due to the resultant effect of 
previous experiences which are not at the moment present 



70 RETENTIVENESS, ASSOCIATION, AND REPRODUCTION 

to my mind in detail. This resultant effect would have 
been very different if I had seen in the same way an 
enemy, or a creditor likely to prove importunate, or an ac- 
quaintance in whom I took no particular interest, although 
these might have presented a similar appearance to the 
eye. 

I give a last illustration used by Mr. Bosanquet in lec- 
turing at Essex Hall. " If I say ' I have to catch a train 
at Sloane Square to go down to Essex Hall,' I only mention 
one train, one square, and one building. But my assertion 
shades off into innumerable facts which are necessary to 
make it intelligible and true. It implies the existence of 
the underground railway, which implies that of London. 
It implies the reality of this building and of the meetings 
which we hold in it, of the University Extension System, 
and of my own life and habits as enabling me to take part 
in the work of that system. Only a part of this is in the 
focus of my attention ; but the whole is a continuous 
context, the parts of which are inseparable, and although 
I do not affirm the whole of it in so many words when I 
say that I am coming down here by train this evening, yet 
if any part of it was not presupposed, the rest would, so to 
speak, fall to pieces, i.e. would lose relations in the absence 
of which its meaning would be destroyed." 1 

Perceptual and Ideational Process. — The actual flow of 
mental life at all stages of development involves transition 
from implicit to relatively explicit reinstatement of past 
experience. We begin by apprehending a whole in its 
distinctionless totality, and then proceed to unfold its 

1 " Essentials of Logic," by B. Bosanquet, pp. 33-34. I have freely 
adapted the passage quoted by alterations and omissions, so as to suit it to 
my own purpose, which is not quite the same as Mr. Bosanquet's. 



PERCEPTUAL AND IDEATIONAL PROCESS 7 1 

details. But this may take place in two fundamentally 
different ways. We may obtain anew a train of sensations 
by repeating a train of movements which has led to them 
in the past, or we may reproduce the distinct details of 
past experience by means of merely mental images. 
Thus, a man who knows his way about a building may 
make this knowledge explicit either (1) by actually mak- 
ing his way from one part of the building to other parts, or 
(2) by mentally picturing or describing in words the rela- 
tive position of the rooms, passages, staircases, etc. The 
distinction between these two methods of translating the 
implicit into the relatively explicit roughly corresponds to 
the distinction between perceptual and ideational process ; 
(1) is perceptual and (2) ideational. The nature of this 
distinction will be further explained in the next chapter. 



CHAPTER VIII 

DEVELOPMENT OF CHILD 

In preceding chapters we have given some account of 
the general nature and conditions of conscious process. 
We now pass to the consideration of the successive stages 
of mental development. By way of introduction to this 
part of our subject, it is convenient to give some indica- 
tion of the general course of mental development in the 
child. 

Child's Development. — During the first year the child's 
mental progress consists almost wholly in acquiring motor 
associations by which he is enabled to adapt his movements 
in an increasingly purposeful and systematic way to the 
things and occurrences which affect his senses. He thus 
obtains a more and more extensive and effective control 
over the order and nature of his sense-experiences, seeking 
or avoiding them in advance, instead of passively receiv- 
ing them as they happen to occur. It is through a kind 
of experimental process that this takes place. Movements 
of the body, limbs, and organs of sense are at first made 
at random, or comparatively at random. But there is a 
constant tendency to persist in those movements and motor 
attitudes which yield satisfactory experiences, and to renew 
them when similar conditions recur ; on the other hand, 
those movements and attitudes which yield unsatisfactory 
experiences, tend to be discontinued at the time of their 

72 



CHILD S DEVELOPMENT 73 

occurrence and to be suppressed on subsequent similar 
occasions. By the working of this law of Subjective Selec- 
tion, as it is called, relatively blind and undirected activities 
become gradually guided into definite tracks, each advance 
paving the way for further progress. It is to be noted 
that the continuance of an agreeable experience leads to 
satiety or fatigue, and so to change of behavior. Besides 
this, while the agreeable interest continues it may be 
enhanced by varying the motor activity in specific ways, 
without altering its general nature. Hence there is always 
present in some degree a subjective tendency to variation 
which yields material for subjective selection. 

The child is, at the outset, mainly occupied in learning 
to see and touch. By constant practice in adjusting the 
movements of his eyes and hands, he obtains a gradually 
increasing command over the order of his visual and 
tactual sensation. There is, to begin with, a certain ten- 
dency, probably congenital, to turn the head, so as to 
bring into full view bright or obtrusively moving surfaces, 
and to stare at them. Let us suppose that the child is star- 
ing at a bright window and that the nurse turns him away 
from it. He begins to cry. If the nurse turns him toward 
the window again, he ceases crying and wears an appear- 
ance of contentment. But if he is not passively turned 
again so as to face the light, his discontent will continue 
and will manifest itself in restless movements of the head, 
eyes, and body. Among these movements one may occur 
which restores the previous pleasant experience. Turning 
his head far enough, in either direction, he sees again the 
light of the window. When this success, initially due to 
accident, has been repeated a certain number of times on 
similar occasions, the required movements will be made 
more readily, precisely, and decidedly, other movements 



74 DEVELOPMENT OF CHILD 

being cut short or suppressed altogether. The child in the 
nurse's arms, instead of merely kicking with his legs, and 
flapping his hands, will roll his eyes, not up and down, but 
to the left or right, until he catches sight of the window. 
A more complex development is reached when the child 
learns to turn, not his head, but his eyes, from one object 
to another and back again, gazing alternately at each. 
Miss Shinn gives a good instance. " On the twenty-fifth 
day, as the baby lay ... in her grandmother's lap, staring 
at her face with an appearance of attention, ... I leaned 
down close beside her, so as to bring my face into the line 
of vision. She turned her eyes to me with the same appear- 
ance of attention, even effort in slight tension of brows and 
lips ; then back to her grandmother's face ; again to mine ; 
so, several times." 1 Here the eyes actively seek each 
object in turn in a purposeful and systematic way. At a 
later stage the child begins actively to look about in all 
directions in order to find what is to be seen. This atti- 
tude is well described by Miss Shinn. " In the fifth week, 
when held up against my shoulder, she would straighten 
up her head to see around, and thereafter looking about, 
as if to see what she could see, became more and more her 
habit." 2 In this way, a mastery is gradually acquired of 
that complex system of ocular movements by which the 
adult brings successively into distinct vision, by definite 
and orderly transitions, one object after another or differ- 
ent parts and aspects of the same object. There is a simi- 
lar gradual progress in acquiring the power to follow a 
moving object with the eyes. In a very jerky and imperfect 

1 " University of California Studies," Vol. I, pi. I, Notes on the Development 
of a Child, by Millicent Washburn Shinn. Berkeley, 1893, P- "4- 

2 Ibid. p. 14. Miss Shinn's whole account of the development of sight 
and touch is excellent. 



CHILD S DEVELOPMENT 75 

way, the child may do this within the first week, as a con- 
sequence of the tendency to turn towards bright surfaces. 
The bright surface draws the eye after it. Later on, 
moving objects are followed up in a more purposeful and 
systematic way, and also more continuously. 1 But at 
first the eye can keep pace only with slow and uniform 
motions of large or otherwise conspicuous objects. It is 
only by long practice that the child acquires the power of 
following motions which are relatively rapid or minute, or 
such as present complex variations in speed and direc- 
tion. During this development of active sight, active 
touch also goes through a similar course of self-education, 
though this is at first of a much more limited and rudi- 
mentary character. The hand by tentative groping gradu- 
ally learns the system of movements required for obtaining 
touch-sensations in definite order by contact with the vari- 
ous parts of the body and with other objects having a suffi- 
ciently constant situation within reach, e.g. face and clothes 
of the person holding it. The hand also learns to grasp 
what it touches. Clasping what is placed in the palm of 
the hand is a congenital, not an acquired movement. 
What has to be learned is the right use of thumb and fin- 
gers and the appropriate action for grasping things which 
touch other parts of the hand than the palm. At an early 
stage only those objects are seized which touch the fingers 
conveniently in front. Turning the hand so as to grasp 
what touches the back of it is a later development. 

The education of sight and the education of touch may 
go on independently of each other for as long as three or 
four months. Afterwards a confluence of the two streams 
of development begins to take place. The hand is looked 

1 Never quite continuously. Even in adults the process is not quite con- 
tinuous. 



76 DEVELOPMENT OF CHILD 

at as it moves and grasps with more and more attention. 
But at first it is only looked at as anything else might be 
looked at. It is only very gradually that the eye comes to 
guide the movements of the hand. At first the hand does 
not follow the eye, but only the eye the hand. Visual 
guidance becomes possible only as the child gradually 
learns the connection between varying positions of the visi- 
ble appearance of the hand in the field of view and the 
touch-sensations of the hand itself together with the series 
of muscle, joint, and tendon sensations which accompany 
its movements. At first the visual guidance is exceedingly 
vague. Sight seems merely to give the suggestion that 
there is something somewhere to be grasped ; but the 
actual finding of the object depends mainly on tentative 
groping. "About the 113th day" the baby studied by 
Miss Shinn "would not aim a grasp at the object under 
visual guidance, but would look at it, moving her hands 
vaguely, as if feeling for it, then strike them toward it 
with fingers open, till they touched and then grasped." 
Gradually sight comes to exercise more effective control, 
so that the tentative groping acquires decision and preci- 
sion ; at the same time, the position of fingers and thumb 
is prearranged for grasping before actual contact. Thus 
by a long process of experiment, leading through many 
transitional stages, the child becomes able to aim a grasp 
at any object within reach, readily and accurately. 

As this process is going on there is also a gradual in- 
crease of skill in exploring and variously manipulating the 
things which are grasped. This opens out a multitude of 
fresh sources of interest and lines of experimental activity. 
The thing which the hand grasps may be explored in detail 
with the fingers and thumb ; it may be held up and turned 
round for inspection by the eye ; it may be set rolling ; it 



CHILD S DEVELOPMENT 77 

may be dropped or flung on the table or floor ; it may be 
crushed or crumpled or torn or pulled to pieces. If it is 
hollow it may be filled or emptied. If it is elastic it may 
be made to rebound. The child in this phase of his 
development is often especially interested in fitting one 
thing into another, as a cork into a bottle or a key into 
a lock. He may also find a rich source of satisfaction in 
scribbling with a pencil. 

We need only refer in passing to the acquirement of the 
various modes of locomotion, such as rolling, creeping, 
sitting, walking, running, and climbing. These motor 
adjustments develop in the same gradual way as grasping 
and manipulation. They develop by a gradual transition 
from relatively tentative, vacillating, and random motor 
activity to relatively decided, fixed, and orderly modes 
of behavior. Throughout, the experimental activity is 
prompted by interest agreeable or disagreeable. It is pro- 
gressively moulded into shape by the gradual repression 
of movements which lead to unsatisfactory, and the reten- 
tion and repetition of those which lead to satisfactory, 
results. The new experiences which emerge in these pro- 
cesses continually open out new sources of interest, leading 
to new lines of experiment. The results of past process 
form a basis for subsequent development. 

The child's progress, so far as we have hitherto con- 
sidered it, has been almost exclusively on the Perceptual 
level. It has involved only direct adjustments in the way 
of bodily movements to things and situations actually pres- 
ent to the senses. But as the child learns to speak and to 
understand what is said to it, another form of mental ac- 
tivity emerges, and gradually assumes more and more 
importance. In this mental images are substituted for 
actual sensation, and fulfil a function partly analogous, 



J& DEVELOPMENT OF CHILD 

though with most significant differences. Sights seen 
with the mind's eye take the place of sights seen with the 
bodily eye. Sounds heard with the mind's ear take the 
place of sounds heard with the bodily ear. Among these 
images are included mental revivals of words as heard and 
articulated. And words as actually spoken and heard 
fulfil an analogous function ; for they are means of direct- 
ing attention to objects which are not actually present to 
the senses. Both words and mental images have a mean- 
ing due to preformed associations working in the way of 
implicit revival. They are representations of objects. So 
considered they are called ideas, and the processes into 
which they enter are called ideational. The transition from 
perceptual to ideational process is gradual. Ideas probably 
occur at first in a sporadic way, and serve merely to supple- 
ment perception in guiding the course of motor activity as 
it is actually proceeding. As the ideational process becomes 
more independent of perceptual, lines of action begin to 
be planned, projected, or contrived in the way of ideal 
representation, before they are put in execution. There is 
clear evidence of this when the child in dealing with a 
certain situation utilizes experiences which have been 
acquired in different and disconnected circumstances. A 
little boy of twenty months has learned that he can make 
an organ grinder play by giving him a penny. The penny 
is usually supplied by his mother. But on one occasion 
his mother cannot find the coin and the organ grinder is 
walking away. The child exclaims, " Pem, pern " (penny, 
penny). He then goes to a little box containing various 
articles which he is in the habit of using as toys, and 
among these a penny. He finds the penny and brings it 
to give to the organ grinder. This is an ideal combination 
leading to action which could hardly have resulted from 



CHILD S DEVELOPMENT Jg 

that way of learning by experience which is characteristic 
of merely perceptual process ; for he has never before 
taken a penny from the box to give to the organ grinder. 
The box and its contents have quite different and discon- 
nected associations. The mental combination made by the 
child is one which has never occurred in its previous ex- 
perience. The word " pem " directed his thoughts to the 
penny in the box, and he then ideally brings the thought 
of this penny to bear on the present situation. 

As the child grows older, ideal anticipation of the future 
and ideal recall of the past largely take the place of direct 
adaptation to circumstances immediately present. A ca- 
pacity thus arises for prearranging behavior in adaptation 
to conditions which have not yet occurred, and for mentally 
constructing ideal combinations corresponding to nothing 
which has actually been perceived. For a long time, such 
ideational process, like prior and concomitant perceptual 
process, takes to a large extent the form of play. It is to 
a very large extent exercised merely for its own intrinsic 
interest rather than for the attainment of ulterior ends. 
The imitative and dramatic plays of children mainly con- 
sist in ideal construction. The same holds good of the 
little romances which they invent for themselves. The 
child mentally experiments with his own ideas for his own 
amusement, as at an earlier stage he experiments in 
manipulating the objects which he grasps in his hands. 
He or she imagines a life history for the doll or tin 
soldier. The doll, for instance, is put to bed, made to 
sleep, fed, taken out in its perambulator, reproved and 
slapped when naughty, praised and petted when good. 
Such ideal construction becomes still more complex and self- 
sustaining in the boy's mimic battles with tin soldiers or 
in the girl's tea-parties for her doll, in which ordinary tea 



80 DEVELOPMENT OF CHILD 

has to be pounded into miniature tea. Such playful exer- 
cise prepares the way for the more serious work of ideal 
construction in the business of life. Through ideal con- 
struction, playful and serious, the child learns to connect 
the detached data of perception in a more or less sys- 
tematic whole, as partial features of a single world. At 
the same time his interests cease to take the form of 
detached and transient impulses ; immediate and particular 
ends become subordinated to more remote and general 
ends. Thus a more or less unified plan of life emerges. 
In the whole process ideational activity, like perceptual, is 
throughout a development of interest, and serves in its 
turn to open out new sources of interest, which again 
supply fresh motives for further activity. 

Reviewing this slight sketch of the mental progress of 
the child, we note : (i) That it has two broadly distinguish- 
able stages, the perceptual and the ideational. The first 
of these precedes the second and persists along with it. 
(2) That in both stages the cognitive side of our nature 
cooperates in the most intimate manner with what I have 
called " Interest," including under this head everything 
in the nature of striving, desiring, being pleased or the 
reverse, and all the varieties of emotional attitude. The 
whole process is one in which interest moves toward its 
own satisfaction ; but this is possible only by finding out 
how to satisfy itself, — in other words, it is possible only 
through the development of cognition. 

Imitation. — Towards the end of the first year imitation 
begins to play a conspicuous part in the child's development. 
Subsequently it becomes a factor of very great importance. 

The term "imitation" is, however, ambiguous. There 
are two forms of imitative activity which must be carefully 



IMITATION 51 

distinguished. One of these, deliberate imitation, is dis- 
tinctive of ideational process. The other, spontaneous 
imitation, is found also at the perceptual level, though 
it becomes more varied and complex as the flow of ideas 
becomes more varied and complex. 

Deliberate imitation essentially involves an ideal com- 
bination. The subject starts with the idea of a certain 
end to be attained. Some one else is seen to attain this 
end by a certain action. This action is then ideally repre- 
sented as a means of attaining the end, and it is performed 
for the sake of the end, not for its own sake. A child, 
let us say, is trying in vain to open a drawer in order to 
get toys or sweetmeats which the drawer contains. I show 
him how to open the drawer by turning a key, closing and 
locking it again. He then attempts to turn the key him- 
self. So far as he does this merely as a means of open- 
ing the drawer and getting the toys or sweetmeats, the 
imitation is deliberate, not spontaneous. 

In the spontaneous form of imitation, the subject at- 
tempts to repeat some one else's action, simply because 
he finds it intrinsically attractive or impressive, and not for 
the attainment of any ulterior end. At that stage in the 
child's development in which he is keenly interested in 
manipulating objects, the sight of my turning the key 
would be likely to attract his attention vividly, apart from 
any reference to an ulterior result. He would then tend 
to imitate the action spontaneously, and not as a means to 
an end. This spontaneous imitation does not necessarily 
involve ideas. The mere perception of your beating the 
table with your hands or shaking your head is enough to 
prompt the child of about twelve months to beat the table 
with his own hands or shake his own head. 

It is this spontaneous imitation which dominates the 



82 DEVELOPMENT OF CHILD 

dramatic play of children. They are interested in the 
doings of their elders directly, and imitate them from this 
motive, and not as a means to any further end. 

Both spontaneous and deliberate imitation presuppose 
a motor association between the perception or idea of the 
act to be imitated and more or less similar movements 
which the child has already learned to perform. Hence 
the more he has already learned to do, the more he can do 
in the way of imitation, and the less he has already learned 
to do, the less he can do in the way of imitation. At the 
outset the child's imitative actions tend rather to resemble 
his own previous performances than his model. But the 
model has a modifying influence which becomes more and 
more marked in course of time. The child has not only 
learned certain particular movements, he has also learned 
to vary his movement in certain general ways, and he may 
thus make a particular variation in response to the model, 
which he has not made before. He has learned, for 
instance, how to stretch out his arm with varying degrees 
of force and rapidity. He sees you stretch out your arm 
very rapidly and forcibly, and in imitating you he may 
stretch out his own arm more rapidly and forcibly than he 
ever did before. He may also be led to combine and coad- 
just movements in the process of imitating, as he has never 
previously combined and coadjusted them. Thus he is 
able to imitate, for the first time, the action of his nurse in 
throwing a ball, only because he has already learned to 
hold things in his hand, to let them drop, and to stretch 
out his arm more or less forcibly. But the combination 
of first grasping the ball, then stretching out his arm 
forcibly and rapidly, then letting the ball go, is new to 
him. Even if he is successful in so combining his move- 
ments, his action may repeat only very imperfectly that 



IMITATION 83 

of his nurse. But accidental variations may occur which 
assimilate his behavior more closely to his model, and 
these variations will tend to be maintained and repeated 
by subjective selection. The deliberate and persistent 
endeavor to correct deviations from the model by reit- 
erated trial involves ideational process. It depends on 
comparison and contrast between the result of the imitative 
process and that which was to be imitated. The idea of 
a successful imitation is set before the mind as an end to 
be attained, and the actual attempts to copy the model are 
regarded as means. To this extent the imitative process 
becomes deliberate even when its primary motive is the 
intrinsic interest of the action imitated. 



CHAPTER IX 

PERCEPTION OF EXTERNAL OBJECTS AND OF THE SELF 

The external world as a more or less systematic whole 
becomes known to us by a process of ideal construction, 
which will be dealt with later on. But this ideal con- 
struction has for its basis and presupposition a perceptual 
cognition of external objects, and it is with this that we 
are at present concerned. Our problem has two aspects. 
An external thing is extended in space, and spatially 
related to the body of the percipient and to other extended 
things. Thus an essential part of our task will consist in 
giving some account of the perception of spatial relations. 
But besides their spatial character, external objects have for 
us a peculiar kind of independence. They exist, persist, 
and change independently of us and of the vicissitudes of 
our experience, just as we exist, persist, and change inde- 
pendently of them. We have to investigate the mode in 
which we come to cognize spatially extended objects as pos- 
sessing this independent reality. Actually, the cognition 
of spatial relations and of external reality develop together 
in the most intimate union ; they develop in and through 
the same concrete experiences. But for purposes of ex- 
position it is convenient to deal with them separately. We 
shall begin with spatial perception. 

Spatial Perception. — Position, distance, direction, and 
betweenness are spatial relations, and their systematic con- 

84 



SPATIAL PERCEPTION 85 

nection constitutes spatial order. But these relations are 
by no means merely spatial. They are essential to every 
form of ordered series. In the series of whole numbers 6 
has a position between 8 and 4, and it is at an equal dis- 
tance from each of them in opposite directions. All 
mathematical progressions illustrate the same point. In 
a series of tones arranged according to their pitch, the 
direction from higher to lower is opposed to that from 
lower to higher, each tone has a certain position between 
others, and each is more or less remote from others accord- 
ing as more or fewer tones intervene between it and them. 
All temporal succession exhibits the same relations. There 
are distance and direction in time as well as in space, and 
each successive phase of a temporal sequence has a definite 
position between what comes before and what comes after. 
The same relational character is also found in the con- 
secutive steps of a train of reasoning and in the transition 
from the more to the less general in a system of classifica- 
tion. The relations of position, distance, and direction 
have in each of these instances distinctive peculiarities 
determined by the respective kinds of material in which 
they are exemplified. It is not otherwise with spatial 
order. Here also there is a specific kind of material 
content which in most complex ways is connected in these 
relations. This material content is supplied by a character 
especially belonging to tactual and visual presentations, 
though it is shared also by organic, and possibly in a 
rudimentary way by other sensations. Extensity is a con- 
venient name for this constituent of our experience of 
extension. Everybody, says Dr. Ward, knows what exten- 
sity is "who knows the difference between the ache of a big 
bruise and the ache of a little one," or "between total and 
partial immersion in a bath." The experiences of being 



86 PERCEPTION OF EXTERNAL OBJECTS 

totally and partially immersed in a bath differ as regards 
the quantity of resulting sensation. But this difference is 
not merely one of intensity ; it is also one of massiveness 
or voluminousness. In other words, it is a difference in 
extensity. The nature of extensity is best illustrated 
by experiences which differ from the fully developed per- 
ception of spatial extension only in the comparative 
absence of spatial order. Organic sensations, such as 
those of hunger, thirst, repletion, fatigue, and repose after 
fatigue, contain at the most very rudimentary internal 
distinctions of direction, distance, and position. But they 
are felt as more or less diffused. Professor James speaks 
of " the vast discomfort of a colic or a lumbago." Pres- 
entations in the extreme margin of the field of view have 
a peculiar vagueness differing in its nature from that of 
objects seen through a fog or in a bad light. This vague- 
ness consists in the comparative absence of a definitely 
discernible order of positions, distances, and directions ; in 
particular, it is worth noticing that the field of view as a 
whole is shapeless at its boundary. In the case of touch, 
the two points of a pair of compasses separated by a quar- 
ter of an inch and applied to the lips yield the perception 
of two discriminated contacts, with a discernible position, 
distance, and direction relatively to each other. But when 
they are applied to the forehead there is no discernment 
of two contacts ; there is merely a vaguely extensive touch- 
sensation without inner distinction of position, distance, 
and direction. 

We can no more account psychologically for the exten- 
sity of visual and tactual sensations than for their intensity 
and quality. Extensity is a primary datum with which we 
must start in treating of the development of spatial per- 
ception. On the other hand, the cognition of spatial 



SPATIAL PERCEPTION &J 

order becomes progressively more definite and articulate 
by processes which the psychologist can trace. Yet we do 
not pretend to take our point of departure at a stage in 
which the apprehension of anything which can be called 
spatial relation is entirely absent. The process is rather 
to be regarded as a gradual transition from relatively 
indistinct to relatively distinct perception. From the out- 
set a certain relational character belongs to the perception 
of extensity. For extensity at least involves the continu- 
ous connection of parts within a whole. But there is a 
wide interval between this relational character of extensity 
as it is initially apprehended and our developed apprehen- 
sion of a systematic spatial order of definite positions, 
distances, and directions. Apart from other evidence, the 
study of the development of young children leaves no 
doubt on this point. 

We have said that extensity is a continuous whole. We 
must now indicate more precisely by what kind of differ- 
ence its parts are differentiated. The difference is that 
which differentiates sensations due to the stimulation of 
one part of the sensitive surface of the skin or retina from 
those due to the stimulation of other locally distinct parts. 
Without the help of sight, we can distinguish contact 
with the big toe from contact otherwise of an exactly 
similar character with the nape of the neck, or the finger 
tip. It is only through a complex process that we learn 
to localize the different contacts in the toe, neck, or finger 
tip. But this process and its results are only possible 
on the basis of original differences in the tactual expe- 
riences, which come to be localized. Similarly with the 
eye. We can distinguish a patch of white in the left 
margin of the field of view from an otherwise similar 
patch of white in the right margin. The distinction of 



88 ERCEPTION OF EXTERNAL OBJECTS 

left and right is acquired. But it presupposes an original 
difference in the visual experiences directly connected with 
the local distinctness of the parts of the retina stimulated 
by the light from the two white objects. 

Such differences are called differences of local sign. 
They seem to be quite independent of the quality and 
intensity of the visual and tactual sensations as determined 
by the variable nature of the stimulus or changing state 
of the sense-organ. Amid all the variations of our tactual 
and visual experience, the local systems of the eye and of 
the skin remain permanent and constant. The same local 
sign may become successively (never simultaneously) con- 
nected with sensations of different quality or intensity ; a 
sensation otherwise similar may successively acquire dif- 
ferent local signs ; but the local signs themselves are 
unchanging. 

The perception of spatial order is primarily the percep- 
tion of position, distance, and direction within a system of 
local signs. The experiences which most contribute to 
this result are those in which a sensation continuously 
changes its local sign. This happens, for example, when 
a fly crawls across the face or passes through the field 
of view. In such cases the different local signatures are 
acquired by the sensation in a definite serial order. As a 
fly creeps from the bridge of the nose to the tip, it must 
pass successively over intermediate parts of the sensitive 
surface. Hence, there is a determinate order in which 
the sensation of clammy contact changes its local sign. 
Similarly, when a white object passes across the field of 
view from right to left, locally distinct parts of the retina 
are successively stimulated in a definite sequence ; and a 
correspondingly definite sequence belongs to the continu- 
ous change of local sign in the sensation of white. Learn- 



SPATIAL PERCEPTION 89 

ing to perceive spatial relations primarily consists in 
learning the order in which the local sign system is trav- 
ersed by sensations which continuously change their local 
signature. With reference to the sensations themselves, 
this order is one of succession in time ; it is an order of 
motion. With reference to the fixed and constant local 
sign system, it is a spatial order of positions, distances, and 
directions. 

The experiences of active sight play an altogether pre- 
dominant part in the actual development of spatial percep- 
tion. The processes, described in the last chapter, by 
which the child learns to command the occurrence of 
visual and tactual impressions in a definite order, are also 
the processes by which he learns to apprehend spatial posi- 
tion, distance, and direction. In learning how to bring a vis- 
ual presentation from the dim margin of the field of view 
into the area of distinct vision, he learns the ordered series 
of changes in local sign which the visual presentation 
undergoes before it becomes distinct. When he follows a 
moving object with the eye, he finds that the other parts 
of the field of view continually change their local sig- 
nature in definite order, varying with the experience of 
ocular movement. So far as the eyes fail to follow the 
moving object, this also, or this alone, changes its local 
sign. When the moving object is our own hand or some 
other mobile part of our own body, we can control these 
local sign changes at will. We learn to do so by such 
processes as have been described in showing how the 
child learns to grasp and manipulate under visual 
guidance. 

In all these experiences, so far as they involve move- 
ments of the eyes, hands, or other parts of the body, 
local sign changes are accompanied by corresponding 



90 PERCEPTION OF EXTERNAL OBJECTS 

sequences of sensation due to the varying states of muscles, 
joints, and tendons. These help to define spatial position, 
distance, and direction ; and in doing so they themselves 
acquire spatial significance. Each special group of muscle- 
joint-tendon sensation connected with a certain position 
of a limb comes through association to represent this posi- 
tion, and each kinesthetic series comes to represent a tract 
of space traversed. Thus, without actually seeing our 
hand, we can distinguish its varying position relatively to 
the rest of the body ; we know whether it is stretched out 
in front of us, or hanging by our side, or held above our 
head. Similarly, the kinesthetic series which accompanies 
the transition from one of these postures to another, im- 
mediately conveys to the mind the perception of a motion 
in space from one position to another, such as might have 
been observed by the eye. In this way our perception of 
spatial relations receives a most important development. 
For we are constantly moving our eyes, bodies, and limbs 
in varying ways, and these movements yield a correspond- 
ing varying perception of distance and direction in space. 

Perception of External Reality. — External objects are 
visible, tangible, audible, and otherwise appreciable by the 
senses. Yet they do not merely consist in actual sensa- 
tions of ours. They with their tangible, visible, and other 
sensible qualities are apprehended as existing, persisting, 
and changing, independently of the flow of our transient 
sense-experiences. They and their sensible qualities are 
cognized as existing independently of us, just as we exist 
independently of them. How do we become aware of 
this independent reality ? 

In the first place, it is only through the analogy of our 
own being that we are enabled to become cognizant of 



PERCEPTION OF EXTERNAL REALITY 9 1 

other beings having an independent existence such as we 
ourselves have. Thus the perception of external reality 
essentially involves what has been called the " projection 
of the self." But when this is admitted, there still remain 
two questions to be answered: (1) What are the motives 
and conditions of this self-projection ? (2) How do the 
independent beings which it leads us to posit become 
invested by us with attributes derived from the content 
of our own sensation, so that they appear as material 
things and not merely or mainly as other minds ? These 
two questions find their answer in the facts of motor 
adaptation — in the way in which our motor activity is 
conditioned in the attainment of its ends. The projection 
of the self and motor adaptation are then the two factors 
which give rise to the perception of the independent 
reality of material things. We have first to consider motor 
adaptation. 

Motor Adaptation. — We must take care to distinguish 
our own point of view from that of the individual whose 
experience we are investigating. We know that there is 
an independently real external world, and we know that 
the body of the individual we are considering is part of it. 
But we must avoid assuming at the outset that he himself 
possesses this knowledge. Our problem is to show how 
he gains it. 

Owing to the peculiar connexion of psychical and bodily 
processes, he has a relatively direct and unconditional con- 
trol over certain sense-experiences. Given the appropriate 
motor associations or instinctive equipment, he can com- 
mand at will the various series of kinesthetic sensations 
connected with the unimpeded movements of his organism. 
This does not imply that he is aware of his own organism 
and its movements as independently real ; it means only 



92 PERCEPTION OF EXTERNAL OBJECTS 

that he obtains certain groups and series of muscle-joint- 
tendon sensation whenever he is interested in having 
them. But this is not all : he has a similar command over 
certain other experiences which are not kinaesthetic, and 
in particular over certain visual presentations. This is 
not quite so unconditional. It depends on his having his 
eyes open, and looking in the right direction. In moving 
his hand in a certain way, he has immediately and inva- 
riably a certain sequence of kinaesthetic sensations. But 
if he is looking in the right direction, there is also a con- 
comitant and correspondent displacement of the visual 
presentation of the hand in the field of view, and this may 
be followed by movements of the eyes. 

Now so far as the subject has this habitual and uniform 
control over the course of his own sensations, he has no 
motive for recognizing the independent reality of external 
objects. This may be inferred from the analogous facts 
in our own case. Those experiences which are fully and 
uniformly under our own command are not distinguished 
from our own doings, — our own subjective activity. We 
do not usually distinguish between what our hand does 
and what we do ourselves. When I speak of myself 
as handling a knife, the knife is regarded as an external 
object, but the handling is regarded as part of my own 
action. This is because the movements of the hand are 
fully under my control. If it were suddenly paralyzed, it 
would at once become an external object to me. Simi- 
larly, in writing, so long as the pen does not splutter or 
make blots, or otherwise manifest its independence, I think 
of its movements as an integral part of my own action — 
the action called writing. Again, in riding a bicycle, so 
long as the machine is completely under command, I 
regard its behavior as my own behavior. I say that / go 



PERCEPTION OF EXTERNAL REALITY 93 

down a street or turn a corner ; I do not say that the 
bicycle does so. On the other hand, if it gets out of my 
control, it at once becomes an external object. We may 
then assume that so far as kinaesthetic and other sensa- 
tions occur uniformly and directly whenever the subject is 
interested in having them, no distinction is made between 
his own activity and these, its habitual consequences. 
Conative consciousness and its fulfilment are blended 
into a unity ; and this complex experience is what we 
call the experience of motor activity. 

Experiences, then, which are fully and constantly within 
our control do not of themselves lead to the recognition of 
an external reality. The same is broadly true of experi- 
ences which are in the main unaffected by our free motor 
activity, e.g. ' the organic sensations of hunger, thirst, or 
headache. When the distinction between self and external 
thing begins to emerge, these organic experiences are 
primarily referred to the self rather than the not-self. 

It thus appears that the cognition of external reality 
does not arise in connection either (a) with sensations 
which are fully subject to motor control or (b) quite 
beyond it. What is required is (c) a motor command of 
the flow of sense-experience which has to be acquired by 
a process of adjustment to conditions which are themselves 
uncontrollable. This is what I have called motor adapta- 
tion. It is present wherever we have to find out by trial the 
motor activity requisite for getting certain sense-presenta- 
tions in a certain order. Motor adaptation in a definite 
form begins in the young child at the latest with processes 
of learning to see and to touch. He finds by trial the 
varying trains of motor activity required in varying situa- 
tions for obtaining correspondent trains of distinct visual 
sensations. He has to learn how to find his way about in 



94 PERCEPTION OF EXTERNAL OBJECTS 

the field of view. Similarly, he has to learn by a gradual 
process of trial and error the motor activity required for 
grasping objects in varying positions and at varying 
distances. 

Motor adaptation involves at once and in intimate union 
the partial dependence and the partial independence of 
sense-experience in relation to motor control. So far as 
sense-experience is merely dependent on our motor activity, 
we do not apprehend it as qualifying an external object. 
So far as it is relatively independent, we do normally appre- 
hend it as qualifying an external object. If I begin to look 
in a certain direction and then alternately open and close 
my eyes, a certain visual presentation may alternately 
appear and disappear. The occurrence of the successive 
appearances and disappearances depends merely on me. In 
the given situation, it is conditioned merely by the alter- 
nate opening and closing of my eyes. I do not therefore 
regard it as a change to the external object. 1 I do not 
suppose that the thing seen alters its position or other- 
wise. On the other hand, the fact that when I open my 
eyes it is just this visual presentation which appears and 
that when I close them it is just this which disappears, 
is not dependent on my own motor activity. The same 
motor activity might have been concomitant with the 
coming and going of a different visual experience. Hence 
I apprehend the visual experience as qualifying an external 
object which is alternately seen and not seen. 

The forms of motor adaptation are endlessly diverse. 
But there is one in particular which demands special dis- 
cussion because of its predominant importance. I refer to 

1 It must be remembered that we have not yet explained how the thought 
of an external object comes to be framed at all. This will be dealt with later 
pn in discussing projection of the self, 



PERCEPTION OF EXTERNAL REALITY 95 

that which arises in connection with the experience of 
resisted motor effort The kinesthetic and other expe- 
riences connected with the free movement of our body and 
limbs are normally within our full control. We can have 
them when we are interested in having them. Now, let 
us suppose that the moving hand, for example, encounters 
an obstacle which it cannot at once overcome. The sub- 
ject then experiences the interruption of a certain kinaes- 
thetic series ; this series fails of its customary continuation. 
If the eye is following the hand, there is corresponding 
interruption of the customary series of visual experiences 
which accompany free movement; at the point where the 
visual presentation of the hand becomes continuous with 
the visual presentation of the object, it ceases to change its 
position in the field of view. Coincidently, there super- 
venes a complex of sensation due to muscular tension and 
tactual pressure. In such situations motor adaptation is 
required for the satisfaction of practical and theoretical 
interests. The subject must find out by trial how to adjust 
and readjust his motor activity in infinitely various ways in 
accordance with varying circumstances. When the moving 
hand encounters an obstacle, the subject may be interested 
in continuing the train of experiences which has been 
broken short, so that its interruption is felt as a constraint. 
In this case he can only find satisfaction by motor adapta- 
tion taking the form of increased effort, — increased in- 
nervation of the muscles intensifying the sensations of 
pressure and tension. How much exertion may be required 
is determined for him and not by him ; in the first instance 
he must find this by trial. Again, it is determined for him 
and not by him, whether the increased exertion has to be 
continuously maintained, as in lifting a weight, or whether 
a momentary effort is enough, as it may be in pushing 



96 PERCEPTION OF EXTERNAL OBJECTS 

open a difficult door. The requisite adaptations have, in 
the first instance, to be found out by trial, though the sub- 
ject gradually learns by experience how to adjust his be- 
havior at once in circumstances sufficiently similar. With 
the widening of experience and the development of more 
and more complex and special interests, this kind of motor 
adaptation becomes correspondingly diversified and com- 
plex. It includes all the various modes of manipulation, — 
all pulling, pressing, rending, tearing, joining, disjoining, 
breaking, bending, crushing, moulding, stretching, and the 
like, and all the various simultaneous combinations and 
coadjustments of these processes. In all such activities 
what lies directly within the power of the subject is to 
make efforts varying in intensity and direction and in 
varying combinations. The result does not depend on him. 
It depends on conditions to which he must adapt himself 
if he is to be successful. The required adaptation need 
not consist in overcoming resistance by effort. To a large 
extent it consists in avoiding or evading the experience of 
muscular tension. This is the case, for example, in placing 
the apex on a house of cards, or in exploring a surface so 
as to ascertain its shape or find something on it. In ex- 
ploring a surface we have to keep continuously in contact 
with it, but any attempt to push against it so as to over- 
come resistance would hinder rather than help our special 
interest. Yet motor adjustment is involved ; we move so 
as to obtain a certain continuous series of touch-sensations, 
and in so doing we must conform to the conditions imposed 
by the shape of the surface explored. A flat surface and 
a spherical surface demand different trains of movement. 

Projection of the Self. — It is in and through the pro- 
cess of motor adaptation that we apprehend the con- 
tents of our sense-experience as qualities entering into the 



PERCEPTION OF EXTERNAL REALITY 97 

constitution of external things. But this presupposes that 
the external thing does not consist for us merely in the 
sensible features by which it is qualified. There must be 
something to which these sensory contents are referred as 
attributes. Until we have shown how the thought of this 
something is framed we have not completed our task ; we 
have not shown how features of sense-experience can be 
apprehended as expressing the nature of a not-self, capable 
of existing, persisting, and changing independently of the 
self and its fluctuating states. This deficiency is supplied 
by the other factor which we have named together with 
motor adaptation as involved in the perception of external 
reality. It is supplied by the projection of the self. The 
not-self which forms the indispensable nucleus or inner 
being of the external object is apprehended as in some 
degree a counterpart of our own subjective existence, and 
in particular as exercising a motor activity and as having a 
continuous existence more or less like our own. 

The general condition on which self -projection depends 
is that sensible changes initiated and controlled by our 
motor activity resemble in character and are continuously 
connected with those which take place independently of us. 
Hence we come by the working of association to regard 
the independently occurring changes as connected in like 
manner with another motor activity, and in general with 
something more or less akin to our own psychical life. 

For example, the visual presentation of our own body 
and its movements is like in nature to visual presentations 
of surrounding things, and forms part of the same continu- 
ous field of view. When I move my hand the motor adapta- 
tions by which I follow the movement with my eye are such 
as would be required in following the movement of another 
man's hand or of an inanimate object. But in the case of 

H 



98 PERCEPTION OF EXTERNAL OBJECTS 

my own hand the visible changes are initiated and main- 
tained by my own motor activity; hence I tend to regard 
similar visual appearances when they are not initiated and 
maintained by me as being initiated and maintained by 
motor activity other than my own. It seems to me to flow from 
what in popular parlance is called a "force" or "energy." 
This "force" or "energy" forms no part of the sensible 
appearance. It is rather an interpretation of the sensible 
appearance in terms of the percipient's own subjective life. 
In like manner the experience of resisted effort is inter- 
preted as implying something which exerts a counter effort. 
This will be best understood if we consider first the case 
in which our own motor activity is directed against itself, 
as when each hand presses or pulls in opposition to the 
other. Here there are two distinct experiences of pressure 
and tension which we may call tr and tl as connected with 
the right and left hands respectively. There are also two 
distinct kinesthetic series which may fail of the continua- 
tion they would each receive in unobstructed movement ; 
these we may call kr and kl. Let us suppose that effort and 
counter effort (tr and //) are at first evenly balanced so that 
neither hand moves ; then both kr and kl remain undevel- 
oped, and the visual presentation of the hands retains the 
same unaltered position in the field of view. If tr and // 
are increased simultaneously and equally, no further change 
results, But if tr is relatively increased or // relatively de- 
creased, then kr is continued, and at the same time there is 
a corresponding displacement of the visual appearance of 
the hands in the field of view. Even then, however, so 
long as tl is in any degree maintained, both the kinesthetic 
and the visual series proceed more slowly than they would 
do otherwise, and they only proceed at all while tr is main- 
tained in the requisite intensity. If we compare the expe- 



PERCEPTION OF EXTERNAL REALITY 99 

rience as we have described with such processes as lifting 
a. weight or pushing a bicycle up a steep hill, we shall find 
an essential analogy in all respects but one. In the second 
class of cases we experience only one effort and one kinaes- 
thetic series ; that something is making a counter effort is 
not directly experienced, but suggested by association. 
This something is not in itself an external object, but 
rather the nucleus of one. It becomes an external object 
by being invested with sensible qualities. We refer to it 
as its attributes or expressions of its nature those contents 
of our sense-experiences which occur, persist, and change 
in relative independence of our own motor activity, — those 
contents to which we have to adjust ourselves in the way 
of motor adaptation. 

The process of self-projection may have manifold 
degrees. In more rudimentary stages of mental develop- 
ment it is far more indiscriminate than in the more ad- 
vanced. The savage is ready to treat trees, plants, rocks, 
rivers, and all kinds of inanimate things, as willing, feel- 
ing, and thinking more or less as he himself does. The 
civilized adult draws a sharp line of demarcation between 
animal life on the one hand and vegetable life and inani- 
mate things on the other. He allows free play to self- 
projection only in the case of other human beings. None 
the less, the anthropomorphic tendency in an attenuated 
form still interpenetrates our own view of the world. 

" We smile at the savage who thinks a magnet must need 
food, and is puzzled that the horses in a picture remain for- 
ever still; but few consider that underlying all common-sense 
thinking there lurks the same natural precipitancy. We 
attribute to extended things a unity which we know only 
as the unity of an unextended subject; we attribute to 
changes among these extended things what we know only 



IOO PERCEPTION OF EXTERNAL OBJECTS 

when we act and suffer ourselves ; and we attribute fur- 
ther, both to them and their changes, a striving for ends 
which we know only because we feel. In asking what 
they are, how they act, and why they are thus and thus, 
we assimilate them to ourselves, in spite of the differences 
which lead us by and by to see a gulf between mind and 
matter. Such instinctive analogies have, like other analo- 
gies, to be confirmed, refuted, or modified by further 
knowledge, i.e. by the very insight into things which these 
analogies have themselves made possible. That in their 
first form they were mythical, and that they could never 
have been at all unless originated in this way, are con- 
siderations that make no difference to their validity, — 
assuming, that is, that they admit, now or hereafter, of 
a logical transformation which renders them objectively 
valid." 1 

The Embodied Self. — What is included in the conscious- 
ness of self at the perceptual level ? It embraces, of 
course, the strictly subjective states of pleasure and pain 
and the various kinds of emotion ; it embraces all sen- 
suous appetites and all other forms of conation which 
occur at this stage of mental development ; it also em- 
braces the process of cognition, the process in which 
various objects in turn come to be perceived and cease to 
be perceived. All these items enter into the perceptual 
consciousness of self, though they are not discriminated 
from each other and separately noticed in their distinct- 
ness. But the perceptual consciousness of self includes 
far more than this : it comprises the body, — the skin and 
what is contained within the skin. The body in some 

1 J. Ward. Article on " Psychology " in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 
pp. 81, 82. 



THE EMBODIED SELF IOI 

essential respects is just like other external objects. None 
the less, the experiences connected with it are so intimately 
blended with subjective process that discrimination between 
them would require an effort of analytic thought quite 
impossible on the perceptual plane. Indeed, we do not 
ordinarily make the distinction ourselves in a clear and 
consistent way. When a man says, " I am going to 
London," or, "I was knocked down," evidently body and 
mind are included in one indiscriminate whole. 

Bodily experience and subjective process blend with 
each other in manifold ways. The connecting link lies 
mainly in those sensations which are directly due to the 
state of the body itself independently of external impres- 
sions. Under this head are included sensations due to 
muscles, joints, and tendons at rest or in movement, the 
continuous mass of cutaneous sensations of touch and 
temperature which is constantly present independently of 
contact with external things or one part of the body with 
another, and finally organic sensations proper, such as hun- 
ger and thirst. Organic sensations are on the one hand 
fused with sensuous appetites and pleasures and pains, and 
on the other they form a continuous unity with the total 
complex of sense-experiences through which our body 
is perceived. Emotions again coalesce with organic and 
kinsesthetic and other internally initiated sensations, e.g. 
those of hot tinglings, cold shivering, shallow or deep 
breathing, quickened heart beat, goose-flesh, tense or slack- 
ened muscles, and the like. We have already shown how 
conative consciousness blends with kinesthetic sensation 
and with visible and tangible presentation of the moving 
limb, in the single experience of free motor activity. 

The process of cognizing external things is bound up with 
the changing spatial relation between them and the presen- 



102 PERCEPTION OF EXTERNAL OBJECTS 

tation of the body ; in order to be perceived they must come 
or be brought within range of the organs of sense. To be 
seen a thing must either of itself enter the field of view or 
the open eyes must be turned toward it. For pressure 
and muscular tension actual contact is required, and this is 
presented to sight as visible contiguity. The pleasures and 
pains of sense, which are not merely due to internal bodily 
states, are similarly conditioned ; in their more emphatic 
forms they are connected with actual contact between an 
external thing and the organism, followed by a perceptible 
change localized in the part of the sensitive surface 
affected, e.g. a bruise or a cut. 

Owing to such conditions as these there is a spatial de- 
marcation between the self and the not-self. The skin and 
what lies inside it is apprehended as belonging to the self ; 
what lies outside it is apprehended as not-self. The dis- 
tinction corresponds roughly with that between single and 
double contact-sensations. When we touch our own 
bodies there is the resulting experience including sensa- 
tions due to the stimulation of both the sensitive surfaces 
in contact with each other. Each surface both touches 
and is touched. When we touch things outside the body 
one-half of this experience is absent. 



CHAPTER X 

IDEA AND IMAGE 

Ideational Process. — The transition from perceptual 
process to trains of ideal representation is one of immense 
importance. The grand contrast between the achieve- 
ments of man and the achievements of animals depends 
on the incomparably greater development of ideational 
process in human beings, in connection with the use of 
language, which is at once a consequence of this devel- 
opment and its most important instrument. Ideas as 
compared with percepts possess a peculiar plasticity. Ideal 
representations are to begin with reproductions of per- 
cepts. But they are capable of combining with each other, 
and of being variously modified so as to give rise to new 
ideal constructions such as have never been presented in 
perceptual experience. A young child cannot by any adap- 
tation of his sense-organs, or by any kind of manipulation, 
transform a stick into a horse ; but he can imagine the 
stick to be a horse, and enjoy an imaginary gallop astride 
of it. But this plasticity does not merely lend itself to 
playful flights of fancy. It is of the highest practical im- 
portance. When ideas " are sufficiently self-sustaining to 
form trains that are not wholly shaped by the circum- 
stances of the present, entirely new possibilities of action 
are opened up. We can desire to live again through 
experiences of which there is nothing actually present 
to remind us, and we can desire a new experience which is 

103 



104 IDEA AND IMAGE 

as yet only imagined." Besides this, we can plan in 
advance how to attain our ends, before the time arrives 
for putting our designs into execution. We can compare 
beforehand various alternative courses, selecting and re- 
jecting. We can ideally combine and arrange means for 
the fulfilment of our purposes, as they have never been 
combined and arranged before in perceptual experience. 
By merely perceptual experiment it is possible to learn 
how to manipulate a stick and to strike with it, or how to 
cut with a sharp stone. But the device of fastening the 
sharp stone to the end of a stick in order to cut more 
effectively can only be hit on in the first instance by ideal 
combination. Though the stick has been used to strike 
with, it has never before been used as an instrument for 
cutting ; and it cannot be so used without bringing it into 
combinations which would never occur, if the subject 
waited for what perceptual experiences might happen to 
present, instead of ideally anticipating and predetermining 
the future. Besides this practical function, ideal construc- 
tion is also manifested in the interpretation of perceptual 
data which links them together as parts of a unified sys- 
tem. We leave a fire burning, and on our return find 
it burning no longer, and we accordingly represent it 
as having gone out or been put out in the interval. Such 
ideal interweaving of perceptual data yields the presenta- 
tion of a connected world. 

Idea and Image. — The phrase "train of ideas" implies 
a serial process in which certain distinct constituents of the 
train, called ideas, follow one another in time. What is 
the nature of each of these distinct constituents or separate 
ideas ? An idea may be defined as a significant mental 
image. It thus has two components, the image and its 



IDEA AND IMAGE IO5 

meaning. An image is a presentation which is recogniz- 
ably like, but really is not, an actual sense-experience. The 
elements of which it is comprised are like in quality to 
actual sensations, and their spatial and temporal grouping 
resembles the grouping of the sensational content of sense- 
perception. When I mentally picture an orange, though 
there is no orange present to my senses, I see with my 
mind's eye a color and shape more or less resembling 
those of an orange actually seen with the bodily eye. The 
color and shape are said to be "imaged." Similarly, to 
image a sound is to hear the sound with the "mind's ear." 
To image an odor is to smell it with the "mind's nose." 
To image something is not simply equivalent to thinking 
of it. I can think of the color yellow without seeing it 
with my mind's eye. I can think of it by means of the 
word " yellow," or by representing its position in the spec- 
trum, or in similar ways. There are persons who are simply 
incapable of forming images of color at all, and yet they 
can think and talk about colors intelligently. 

This is possible because the image is only one constitu- 
ent of the idea. The other is the meaning which the image 
conveys, and this depends on its efficacy in setting a certain 
group of associated dispositions in a state of nascent or 
implicit excitation. 

The value of image for ideal representation depends on 
its associations ; and it is therefore in a great measure 
independent of its accuracy as a copy of any sense-experi- 
ence of the object which we ideally represent. Words 
mentally heard, or articulated, or both, form a most impor- 
tant class of images. But they do not resemble any sensi- 
ble appearance of the object which we represent by means 
of them. Their value lies in their representative function, 
and this depends on the implicit revivals which accompany 



I06 IDEA AND IMAGE 

them as a sort of mental " fringe " or " halo " (James). So 
when we do use images which copy the sensible presenta- 
tion of the object of thought to the eye, or other senses, it 
is by no means necessary that the reproduction should be 
accurate. As a matter of fact, it is for the most part very 
inaccurate ; indeed, virtually the same image is intrinsically 
capable of representing very diverse things. I think of 
St. Paul's and there floats before my mental view a vague 
picture of something cup-shaped. If this mental picture 
could be transformed into an external object so that every- 
body could look at it, it might not suggest St. Paul's to 
anybody; it might just as well suggest a variety of other 
things. Had the general direction of my thoughts been 
different, I might have used the same image for represent- 
ing a mosque in Constantinople, or even for representing 
Constantinople itself. In varying circumstances and vary- 
ing contexts the same image might have excited different 
groups of associated dispositions. 

Image and Impression. — By "impression" I mean the 
sensational content of actual perception. We have now to 
inquire what characters distinguish impressions as such, 
from images as such, so as to prevent us from confusing 
them save in very exceptional cases. We may enumerate 
the following marks as distinctive of the image : — 

(i) Its fragmentariness ; (2) its independence of our 
movements ; (3) its peculiar mode of behavior as regards 
persistence and change ; (4) its indistinctness ; (5) its lack 
of intensity. 

(1) The image as compared with the impression is frag- 
mentary. The impression is continuous with the totality 
of sense-experience at the moment at which it occurs. The 
stimulus which affects the organ of hearing also produces 



IMAGE AND IMPRESSION IO7 

tactile sensations in the way of vibration ; and these are 
continuous with the totality of cutaneous sensations. At 
the same time it modifies organic sensibility more or less, 
according to its intensity or suddenness. Similarly, visual 
sensations are intimately combined with tactual and motor 
sensations of the eye, and so mediately with the touch- 
experiences of the whole body. Tactual sensations in 
general are blended with those due to position and move- 
ment of the limbs. All sensations of the special senses 
are more or less fused with the massive sentience due to 
the state of the external organs of the body. Thus there 
is at any moment a general context of sense-experience, 
which includes, in its continuous unity, any particular 
impression or group of impressions. But the image has 
no place in this continuous complex. Its place in that con- 
text is preoccupied by sensations due to the actual opera- 
tion of external stimuli. When I mentally picture the 
Duke of Wellington, it is not my mental picture, but the 
sensations due to the stimulation of my retina at the mo- 
ment, which enter into the total context of sense-experi- 
ence at the moment. And the image has no corresponding 
context of its own. It occurs in relative isolation and 
detachment. 

(2) Impressions vary with bodily movement ; for instance 
when we shut our eyes, the field of view disappears. Images 
on the contrary do not show this dependence on move- 
ment ; since they are not conditioned by an external stimu- 
lus, the varying position of the sense-organs, relatively to 
external things, can make no difference to them. 

(3) Impressions due to the operation of a persistent 
stimulus display a peculiar steadiness which is not found in 
images. The image fluctuates with the fluctuations in our 
attention, disappearing when we cease to be interested in 



108 IDEA AND IMAGE 

maintaining it. And even when we do our best to retain 
it unaltered, our success is generally imperfect. Visual 
imagery in particular, except in the case of exceptional 
visualizers, "flows and flickers," as Dr. Ward says, like the 
gas-jets at a fete. These changes are of a very distinctive 
kind, and may suffice to mark off an image from an impres- 
sion, when other tests fail. Beside the peculiar steadiness 
due to uniform persistence of the stimulus, the impression 
also shows a peculiar abruptness of transition as the stimu- 
lus varies, or begins or ceases to operate. Setting aside 
the "flow and flicker" to which we have just referred, 
transitions in the trains of ideas, being conditioned by sub- 
jective interest and preformed association, bear the character 
of a gradual development ; on the other hand, impressional 
transitions, being due to change of stimulation, bear the 
character of something which "happens" to the mind from 
without rather than of a development from within. 

(4) Images as compared with impressions are for the 
most part blurred and indefinite. They lack the wealth 
of determinate detail which belongs to perceptual experi- 
ence. In particular the finer differences appreciable in 
actual perception commonly fail to be reproduced in the 
image. In this respect, however, there are great differences 
between individuals, and in the same individual for differ- 
ent kinds of mental imagery. Some people can "visualize " 
absent or imaginary scenes with a detailed distinctness of 
form and color approaching that of actual vision. Others 
distinctly reproduce forms in black and white, but have 
little power of recalling color. Here and there we find 
a person who cannot visualize at all. Again, the indistinct 
visualizer may be able to image articulate sounds with 
clear-cut precision. Yet the same person may be able to 
revive inarticulate noise only in a very vague and indefinite 



IMAGE AND IMPRESSION IO9 

way. The imagery used in ordinary thinking is probably 
much less distinct than the imagery people are capable of 
commanding when they make an express effort. 

(5) As regards intensity, it seems clear that we can 
reproduce differences of loudness and brightness in much 
the same way as we reproduce differences of pitch and 
color. But in general mental imagery is in this respect 
much more limited in range and much less finely differen- 
tiated than sense-perception. There are degrees of loud- 
ness and brightness too high to be revived at all ; and even 
within the range of possible revival, which for the most 
part is very narrow, the finer gradations of intensive differ- 
ence are not reproduced. But these deficiencies do not 
seem to account for the unique importance which is gen- 
erally ascribed to the superior intensity, vivacity, force, or 
liveliness of the impression. The real reason of this seems 
to lie in the fact that other distinctive features of the 
impression are conspicuous in proportion to its intensity, 
and virtually vanish when its intensity is very slight. Thus 
the persistent steadiness of impressions when the stimu- 
lus persists unaltered is scarcely appreciable when the im- 
pression is so faint as to be barely discernible. Similarly, 
continuity with the general context of sense-experience 
fails to be an unambiguous mark of the impression, when 
this is so feeble that it can only be doubtfully and inter- 
mittently distinguished amid the mass of other sensations. 

Types of Mental Imagery. — Individuals differ greatly in 
the kind of mental imagery which is predominant in their 
trains of ideas. Some are mainly visualizers, others mainly 
auditive ; in others reproductions of motor process and 
tactual experiences or both have a decisive preponderance. 
Images of smells and tastes do not appear ever to take 



IIO IDEA AND IMAGE 

the lead ; but there are persons who have a quite excep- 
tional gift for reproducing them. This does not mean that 
every individual falls very definitely into one or other of 
these groups. Probably most of us belong to a mixed type 
in which one kind of imagery is more or less predominant, 
but others are freely used on occasion. 

Motor imagery, by which I mean mental revival of 
muscle, joint, and tendon sensations accompanying move- 
ment or muscular tension, occupies a peculiar place. It 
commonly occurs along with other revivals, and is more or 
less blended with them, so that its separate presence may 
sometimes be difficult to ascertain. In recalling the sounds 
of words, there is commonly a tendency, distinctly or ob- 
scurely marked, to articulate them mentally. In visualiz- 
ing the shape, size, relative position, and motion of objects, 
there is more or less revival of the experiences of ocular 
movement constantly present in actual vision. So in re- 
calling smells there is a tendency to reproduce the action 
of sniffing. The relative prominence of the motor element 
in these cases may vary greatly. Sometimes it is very 
prominent. Sometimes it is hardly distinguishable. Where 
its presence is conspicuous, we speak of motor-auditive, 
motor-visual, or motor-olfactory imagery. 

In the mental life of most of us some form of verbal 
imagery plays a leading part. In some of us such images 
are almost exclusively used. Hence in distinguishing indi- 
vidual types, I shall lay main stress on the different ways 
in which different persons reproduce words. 

I myself belong to a well-marked type. Though my 
general power of visualizing both shape and color is fairly 
good, I make relatively little use of it in my ordinary think- 
ing. I depend mainly on verbal images, and these are in- 
variably of the motor-auditive type. In reproducing words 



TYPES OF MENTAL IMAGERY I I I 

I at once hear them mentally and mentally articulate them. 
My power of reviving sounds which I cannot produce my- 
self is small. I tend to reproduce some imperfect imita- 
tion of my own instead of copying the actual noises. Thus 
in attempting to recall the noise of a dog barking, I men- 
tally say and hear the sound " bow-wow." I know that this 
is not much like the actual bark, but it is the nearest 
approach to it I can make. 

In my own recall of words the motor and the auditory 
elements are about equally prominent. I now pass to two 
cases in which this balance is lost. In the one the motor 
side is altogether predominant, and in the other the audi- 
tory. Some years ago a distinguished Austrian professor 
of anatomy, named Strieker, published an interesting 
monograph on speech-images. He there described his 
own verbal imagery, and undoubtingly assumed that all 
men were like himself. According to this account words 
are reproduced merely as suppressed whispers, sometimes 
accompanied by an incipient twitter of the organs of 
speech. These suppressed whispers are mentally in- 
audible. They are mentally articulated, but not heard at 
all. Strieker states that if he kept his mouth open he 
could not reproduce labials, and that in general his power 
of mental reproduction was abolished if his vocal organs 
were kept in such a position that they could not pronounce 
the corresponding sounds. About the same time a French 
writer, Victor Egger, published a book entitled " The In- 
ternal Word." In this work he maintained that words are 
usually reproduced merely as auditory images, and that the 
presence of a motor element is only an occasional accom- 
paniment. Victor Egger's case is much less exceptional 
than Strieker's. Probably neither of them described their 
experiences with strict accuracy. The motor and the 



I 12 IDEA AND IMAGE 

auditory components of a word are intimately fused both 
in actual speaking and in mental reproduction. Hence if 
one of them is relatively faint it is likely to escape notice 
altogether. 

In another somewhat uncommon group of cases a per- 
son reproduces words predominantly in the form of printed 
or written characters. In extreme instances a man visual- 
izes in this way the words which he actually speaks or 
hears. A person belonging to this type will recall a 
passage in a book by picturing the printed page, and will 
be able to state whereabouts on the page a word or sen- 
tence occurs. He may even be able to read off the words 
mentally in different orders, — backward, for instance, as 
well as forward. In delivering without notes a speech 
which he has previously written, he will see the pages of 
his own manuscript, and even be disturbed by the occur- 
rence of blots and erasures. 

The cooperating play-writers, Scribe and Legouve, fur- 
nish a good example of the contrast between the visual 
and the auditive types. Legouve said to Scribe, " When 
I write a scene, I hear and you see. At each phrase 
which I write the voice of the person speaking strikes 
my ear. The diverse intonations of the actors sound 
under my pen as the words appear on my paper. As for 
you, who are the theatre itself, your actors walk, they 
bestir themselves under your eyes. I am auditor, you are 
spectator." " You are perfectly right," said Scribe. " Do 
you know where I am when I write ? In the middle of 
the stalls." 

Actual odors have often an exceptional power of repro- 
ducing other presentations. But few people can mentally 
recall them save in a very limited and fitful way. There 
are, however, exceptions. The most striking on record is 



TYPES OF MENTAL IMAGERY I I 3 

perhaps that of Zola the novelist, whose mental imagery has 
been submitted to a searching and complete examination 
by Dr. Toulouse. Zola recalled odors with great ease and 
distinctness — better, it is said, than colors or any other 
past sensations. For him, almost every object had its dis- 
tinctive smell : this was true of certain towns, such as Mar- 
seilles or Paris, and even of certain streets and of the 
different seasons of the year. The autumn, for instance, 
smelled of mushrooms and decaying leaves. In mental 
reproduction all these distinctive smells were revived vividly 
and distinctly. Zola was a pronounced olfactive. 

A special command of certain kinds of imagery does 
not seem in general to be connected with any special fine- 
ness or vividness in the corresponding sensations. And 
inversely, the sensations may be vivid and finely dis- 
criminating, without a corresponding power of reproducing 
them. I know persons who appear to have virtually no 
power of mentally visualizing at all. Yet they see well. 
A man may be able to discriminate and identify colors 
when he sees them, and yet have no power of mentally 
picturing them when he does not see. The conditions 
which make actual perception possible are not sufficient to 
make corresponding imagery possible. 



CHAPTER XI 

CONDITIONS OF IDEAL REVIVAL 

We have treated in Chapter VII of retentiveness, asso- 
ciation, and reproduction. We now take up the same 
topic again in special connection with trains of ideas. 

There are two aspects both of perceptual and of idea- 
tional process — the productive and the reproductive. In 
perceptual process, motor activity in part follows the tracks 
traced for it by previous experience ; in part it strikes out 
relatively new lines of development in the way of fresh 
adjustment to the exigencies of the present situation. 
Similarly, trains of ideas are based on revival of past ideas 
and percepts, but they also involve a reshaping, recon- 
struction, and further development of the material fur- 
nished by past experience in conformity with present 
conditions and interests. The next chapter will treat of 
the productive side of ideational process. For the present, 
we shall confine ourselves to the conditions of ideal repro- 
duction as such. 

Spontaneous Revival. — The order of ideal revival is of 
course determined by preformed associations. But associa- 
tion is by no means the one essential condition. Ideas also 
emerge into consciousness of themselves, without being 
introduced by other associated ideas or percepts. Recent, 
intense, or persistent occupation with any topic generates 
a tendency to revert to it independently of any prompting 

114 



ASSOCIATION AND SPONTANEOUS REVIVAL I 1 5 

cue. Rhythmic sequences are peculiarly apt to reproduce 
themselves in this way, as is exemplified in Mark Twain's 
humorous description of the importunate recurrence of 
the lines, " Punch, punch, punch with care, Punch in the 
presence of the passenjare." In certain recent experi- 
ments on memory, series of nonsense syllables were re- 
peatedly read over, and the power of recalling them 
subsequently tested after an interval of about five minutes. 
Some of the subjects could not prevent the syllables from 
rising spontaneously into consciousness during the interval, 
even though they attempted to divert their attention into 
other channels. It has also been shown experimentally that 
the persistent pursuit of a mechanical occupation requiring 
only slight attention is peculiarly favorable to the free 
emergence of disconnected trains of ideas relating to inter- 
esting topics. 

In general, the stronger our propensity is to go on with 
a train of thought at the time when it is discontinued owing 
to interruption or fatigue, the stronger is the tendency to 
revert to it again, provided that our attention has not been 
diverted from it for too long a time or by other pursuits of 
too absorbing a nature. An unsolved puzzle such as a 
chess problem may take so strong a hold on our minds that 
it persists in haunting us at intervals in spite of our best 
efforts to exclude it in favor of more important matters. 
In the acute stages of the war in South Africa, the thoughts 
of most people spontaneously turned to this topic, when- 
ever they were not otherwise preoccupied, without needing 
any prompting cue in the way of association. It is spon- 
taneous revival which so often murders sleep. We do our 
best to divert our minds from some topic which keeps us 
awake by the importunate persistency of its recurrence. 
We may succeed for a time, and so drop into a doze. 



Il6 CONDITIONS OF IDEAL REVIVAL 

But presently we find ourselves awake again, and again 
following up the old train of thought with painful 
intensity. 

The commonest instances, so common that they are 
likely to escape notice from their very triviality, are those 
in which we resume an occupation or train of thought after 
a relatively slight and transient interruption. I may, for 
example, be engaged in thinking out some psychological 
difficulty when I am called on to read a letter, to say what 
I will have for dinner, to give directions to a servant, to 
make up my fire or to put a fresh pen in my penholder. 
The interruption really diverts my attention for the time 
being ; but as soon as the distraction is over, I return as 
matter of course to the previous train of ideas, just as a 
stream returns to its old channel when a barrier which had 
obstructed it is removed. 

Association and Spontaneous Revival. — The conditions 
which determine spontaneous revival are operative also when 
the sequence of ideas is determined by association. The 
course of ideal reproduction ordinarily depends on the con- 
joint operation of both factors. The ideas which are most 
apt to recur spontaneously are also most apt to be sug- 
gested by association. Revival partly depends on the pre- 
formed associations, partly on the intrinsic excitability of 
the disposition it tends to bring into action. But the same 
kind of conditions which favor spontaneous reproduction 
also render mental dispositions in general more excitable 
and so facilitate the working of association in certain direc- 
tions rather than in others. When A tends to recall by 
association either B or C or D, it will by preference rein- 
state the experience which has most interest for the subject 
or one which has recently and strongly engaged his atten- 



ASSOCIATION BY CONTIGUITY llj 

tion. If a man's prevailing interest lies temporarily or 
permanently in the direction of Psychology or Arctic ex- 
ploration, or bicycling, or nonsense rhymes, whatever he 
sees or hears or thinks is likely by preference to suggest 
something connected with these rather than with other sub- 
jects. If I hear the name " Smith," it will, ceteris paribus, 
call up to mind the particular Smith who has of late taken 
up much of my attention in preference to the many other 
Smiths with whom I am acquainted. The word " Aus- 
tralian " is likely to suggest to the cricketer a coming test- 
match ; to the politician, the relations between the colonies 
and the mother-country. 

In general we may compare the course of associative 
revival to the spreading of a fire in a mass of fuel which 
is inflammable in very variable degrees in its different 
parts. The spreading flame corresponds to the reproduc- 
tive power of preformed associations ; the varying inflam- 
mability of the fuel corresponds to the varying excitability 
of mental dispositions. 

' l Association by Contiguity." — In Chapter VII we dis- 
cussed those associations which are formed in the course 
of the same continuous attention-process — a process con- 
cerned throughout with the same total object so as to focus 
its successive features and aspects in successive order. We 
then saw that the degree of unity of the total object is a 
most important factor in determining the strength of the 
resulting associations. We also noted the part played by 
contiguity as a cooperative condition. The items which 
emerge successively into the focus of attention are, ceteris 
paribus, more intimately and firmly associated the nearer 
they are to each other in the temporal sequence. The 
association is, ceteris paribus, strongest when the items 



Il8 CONDITIONS OF IDEAL REVIVAL 

associated have been presented simultaneously or in im- 
mediate succession. 

We have now to inquire whether bare proximity in time, 
apart from anything which can be called continuity of in- 
terest or attention, is sufficient of itself to generate asso- 
ciations. According to the traditional "law of contiguity," 
as stated, for example, by James and John Mill and Pro- 
fessor Bain, experiences form associations by the mere fact 
of their occurring simultaneously or in immediate succes- 
sion. It would be going too far to deny the possibility of 
this. But it seems difficult to discover instances in which 
bare proximity is clearly the sole operative condition. In 
general there is also present some form and degree of con- 
tinuity of interest. In Chapter VII we considered only 
attention-processes concerned throughout with the same 
total object. But when attention is being transferred from 
one total object to another there is a certain continuity at 
the moment of transition. For the moment the mind is 
not occupied with either topic exclusively, it is occupied 
with the passage from the one to the other. Just in so far 
as the new process is experienced as an interruption of the 
prior one, it is a constituent part of it, an incident in its 
progress. This kind of continuity gives rise to many asso- 
ciations. I may be playing chess when some one brings 
me a telegram containing important news. When in the 
future I think of the telegram, it is likely to remind me of 
the game and vice versa. The likelihood is the greater the 
more vividly the interruption was felt as such. 

We must also note that the distinction between the total 
object of one attention-process and that of another by no 
means implies complete disconnection. They may have 
more or less community of nature or interest. A man in 
reading his newspaper may attend successively to the Boer 



EMOTION AS DETERMINING IDEAL REVIVAL II9 

war, 1 to the Japanese treaty, to reform of procedure in the 
House of Commons, to the cricket in Australia, to the 
horse racing, to the University news, to a trial for murder, 
and so on. These various topics have so much in common 
that they all belong to the news of the day. The interest 
in each of them is a branch of the general interest in know- 
ing what men are saying and doing. The topics again fall 
into distinct groups, each unified by a certain special com- 
munity of nature and interest. There is the political group, 
the sporting group, etc. To take another illustration, there 
is a certain thread of continuity permeating the various 
occupations of an ordinary day. They are connected as 
forming part of the general scheme of the day's business. 
And this continuity, together with the fact that they are 
successively attended to, is sufficient to give rise to asso- 
ciative connection. The total experience of the day seems 
to leave a total disposition behind capable of being reexcited 
as a whole in the way of implicit revival. If some one 
asks me, " Did you carry an umbrella yesterday ? " I may 
answer immediately and decisively, " No." I do not need 
to recall the successive details of my yesterday's doings in 
order to discover whether walking with an umbrella was 
one of them. And my attitude is not at all like that of a 
mere failure to remember. I positively remember not doing 
what is suggested. I feel it at once to be incongruous with 
my total impression of yesterday's experiences — due to the 
reexcitement of the total or cumulative disposition which 
yesterday's experiences have united to produce. It is with 
this total impression of yesterday as a whole that I start in 
recalling its incidents one by one. The detailed recall is 
the filling in of a general scheme ; it is translation from 
implicit into explicit revival. 

1 This was written in the early months of 1901. 



120 CONDITIONS OF IDEAL REVIVAL 

Understanding "continuity of interest" in this wide 
sense, it may well be doubted whether any associations are 
formed without it. It would seem that the only cases in 
which bare proximity could operate as the sole condition 
would be these associations between presentations which 
escape attention altogether or between these a'nd a presen- 
tation which is attended to. But it is hard to find unam- 
biguous instances of this, and in any case the associations so 
formed must play a very subordinate part in our mental life. 

Emotion as determining Ideal Revival. — The phrase 
"train of ideas" suggests a serial sequence in which each 
successive item calls up the next. But we must always 
bear in mind that in a continuous attention-process each 
successive presentation is apprehended in relation to the 
total object, and that the nature of this object is a most 
important factor in determining the flow of ideas. The 
general direction of mental activity tends to exclude the 
revival of irrelevant ideas, just as it tends to ignore or dis- 
miss them when they do emerge. When our dominant 
interest is in mythology, the thought of the rainbow will 
be likely to suggest Iris, the messenger of the gods. 
When our dominant interest is in Physics, the thought of 
the rainbow will be likely to suggest the laws of the refrac- 
tion of light. The word " match-making " will call up dif- 
ferent ideas according as it is used in a conversation on 
mothers and daughters, or on British industries. 

Each of the various typical forms of emotion or emotional 
mood involves a certain general direction of interest. Each 
is concerned with a certain kind of object ; fear with dan- 
ger, anger with insults and injuries, grief with loss and 
defeat, joy with success and gratification, jealousy with the 
encroachments of others on what we regard as our own 



REPRODUCTION BY SIMILARS 12 1 

peculiar possessions. Hence these emotional states sev- 
erally favor the revival of certain groups or classes of 
ideas. In a fit of depression a man finds his mind filled 
with gloomy anticipations and memories in whatever spe- 
cial direction his thoughts may turn. An angry or ill-tem- 
pered mood seeks and finds its own appropriate food by 
directing the flow of ideal revival into certain channels ; 
everything suggests to it representations of intended or real 
injury, neglect, or persecution, and thoughts of resistance 
or reprisal. Similarly, strong and persistent fear calls up 
ideas of danger and insecurity. In mental depression we 
see only the dark side of things. Fresh air and exercise, 
by bringing back a cheerful disposition, may give a quite 
new direction to our thoughts, so that we now see evidence 
of success and progress where we had previously seen 
defeat and failure. The emotion of itself tends to call up 
the kind of ideas which are congruent with it, and afford 
it the appropriate field for its own development. And 
when these ideas arise, they become associated with each 
other. Hence an emotional mood may become the centre 
and rallying point of a fixed circle of ideas which recur 
whenever it recurs. Those who are subject to recurrent 
fits of depression find themselves reverting, on each return 
of their mental gloom, to the same monotonous cycle of dis- 
tressing topics. They are persistently haunted by these, 
and escape from them only when something occurs to 
change their general emotional state. This may occur 
through the advent of some striking piece of good fortune, 
or the like ; but at least as often it depends on a change 
in their general bodily condition. 

Reproduction by Similars. — A certain appearance of the 
sky may suggest to me coming rain. It does so because 



122 CONDITIONS OF IDEAL REVIVAL 

in the past I have noticed rain to follow when the sky 
looked more or less like this. The revival depends on like- 
ness ; but the likeness need not be complete. Indeed, it is 
in the last degree improbable that it should be complete. 
All that is required is more or less similarity between the 
present aspect of the sky and other appearances which have 
been followed by rain in the past. 

This example is typical. In general when two presenta- 
tions A and B have united in past experience so as to form 
an association, what is required for the ideal revival of B 
is not an exact repetition of A but only its partial repeti- 
tion. Any one of a series of presentations A v A 2 , A 3 , etc., 
having more or less community of nature with A, will tend 
to recall B. 

A young child has learned to use the word " moo-cow " 
when he sees a cow. He notices a small article on the 
dinner table and calls it also a moo-cow. It is in all respects 
unlike the animal in field or farmyard, except in having 
ivory tips which are not altogether unlike horns. The same 
child has seen a band playing wind instruments. Shortly 
afterward he puts a croquet mallet to his mouth and makes 
a noise in imitation of music. The printed or written letters 
abc tend to call up def through association, and this ten- 
dency operates in spite of variation in their size and color 
and within limits in spite of variations in their shape. 

What is it that really takes place in such cases ? A has 
formed an association with B, and in consequence a more 
or less similar A 1 tends to revive B. 1 It is sometimes said 
that what really happens is that A 1 first recalls A, and that 
A then reinstates B. But this account of the process is 

1 The difference between A and A\ in many cases leads to a modification 
of B — to the revival of a B\. But this belongs to the productive side of 
mental process, to be dealt with in Chapter XII. 



REPRODUCTION OF SIMILARS 1 23 

clearly contrary to the facts of actual experience. When 
the present appearance of the sky suggests to me impend- 
ing rain, it is by no means necessary that it should first set 
me thinking of some other similar appearance which has 
been followed by rain on a previous occasion. In order 
that the letters ABC may recall DEF it is by no means 
necessary that my mind should first revert to a past instance 
in which DEF followed ABC. 

The true explanation is that so far as concerns the psy- 
chology of retentiveness and reproduction, similarity is re- 
ducible to partial identity. So far as A 1 resembles A, its 
occurrence is a partial recurrence of A. Its occurrence 
involves a partial reexcitement of the mental trace or dis- 
position left behind by A, with a consequent tendency to 
reexcite the associated disposition left behind by B. Only 
those features of the present appearance of the sky which 
are common to it and to past appearances followed by rain, 
now suggest rain to my mind. The features which distinc- 
tively belong to my present experience do not operate at 
all in producing the ideal revival, though they may modify 
it in various ways, as we shall see in the next chapter. 

Reproduction of Similars. — Besides suggesting rain, or 
instead of suggesting rain, the present appearance of the 
sky may suggest a similar appearance seen by me a week 
or a year ago. A x may recall A itself instead of recalling a 
B which has been associated with A. 

Some psychologists would call the revival of A by A x a 
case of reproduction by similarity, whereas according to 
them the revival of B by A 1 is a revival not by similarity, 
but by contiguity. This language is misleading. So far 
as similarity operates at all, it operates equally in both 
processes. In both processes it is not A x as a total presenta- 



124 CONDITIONS OF IDEAL REVIVAL 

tion which recalls A or B, but only those features of A x 
which are common to it and to A. So far as A 1 differs 
from A, it does not tend to revive either A or B. If we 
symbolize by C that which is common to A and A v it is C 
which in both cases is the operative factor in producing 
the revival. The differentiating features of A we may 
symbolize by D and those of A x by D v Neither D nor 
D x are operative in bringing about the reproduction either 
of A or B. 

I 1 The same fundamental principle of association is in- 
volved in both processes. C and B have in past experience 
entered into the same continuous attention-process : hence 
C tends to recall B. But C also tends to recall D for the 
same reason. C and D have also entered into the same 
continuous attention-process in past experience. We must 
remember that what C recalls is not, properly speaking, the 
total presentation of A, but only that part of it which 
is not already given. C cannot recall itself but only D. 
Yet there is a most vital difference between the two kinds 
of revival. The difference is not in the operative factor 
bringing about recall ; for in both cases this is C. Nor 
does it lie in the principle of association, for in both cases 
this is continuity of interest or attention. The difference 
is rather in the results of the two processes and it depends 
on the peculiar nature in each case of what is reproduced. 
B is a total presentation, just as A 1 is a total pres- 
entation, and when it is recalled it connects itself as 
a whole with A x so as to form an individual link in 
the same serial succession of ideas, — in the same con- 
tinuous attention-process. The coming storm is thought 
of as a concrete event following the present total ap- 
pearance of the sky, just as in my past experiences other 

1 If the beginner finds the passage in brackets too difficult, he may omit it 
on a first reading. 



DIVERGENT REVIVAL I 25 

storms have followed on similar appearances of the sky. 
But when C recalls D, this is not possible. D instead of 
uniting itself with the total presentation A x as a successive 
link in the same train of ideas, unites itself immediately 
with C so as to reconstitute the total presentation A. But 
in this process D must displace D x and be substituted for it. 
For D and D 1 are incompatible. They cannot both be ap- 
prehended in the same relation to C as features of the same 
total presentation. Hence C is twice presented, once as 
part of the total presentation A v and again as part of the 
total presentation A.~\ When the present appearance of 
the sky suggests a past appearance more or less similar, the 
features common to both are duplicated in consciousness. 
They are presented in two distinct instances or examples. 
This would still be the case, even if the present appearance 
exactly resembled the past. For the attendant circum- 
stances would differ so as to be incapable of union in the 
same relation to the identical appearance as to constitute 
the same total presentation. 

The revival of B by A ± may be called serial revival because 
B is recalled as a successive link in the same mental train to 
which A x belongs. The revival of A by A t is an instance 
of what we may call the revival of similars by similars, or 
simply the revival of similars. Properly speaking, what is 
recalled in this process is not A but only those features of 
A or connected with it which distinguish it from A. 

It is to be clearly understood that the revival of similars 
by similars does not at all depend on the similarity having 
been previously noticed. So far as the revival depends 
on previous attention to the similarity, it is a serial re- 
vival. If on some occasion I have met two men and 
noticed that they resemble each other, an association is 
thereby established between the total presentations of 



126 CONDITIONS OF IDEAL REVIVAL 

each. When in the future I meet one of them separately, 
my attention will tend to turn to the other because it has 
already dwelt on both of them simultaneously or succes- 
sively when I met them together. But if an entirely new 
acquaintance reminds me of an old friend because they are 
like each other, this is a pure case of the revival of similars. 
The revival of similars is of immense importance in our 
mental life because it supplies materials for ideal construc- 
tion which could not be obtained in any other way. Its 
value in this respect is connected with its being the most 
important form of divergent or digressive revival. 

Divergent Revival. — More or less similar presentations 
may be attended to in the course of mental trains otherwise 
disconnected, so that the corresponding dispositions acquire 
a variety of divergent associations. Thus each successive 
link in a train of ideas may have a multitude of cross-asso- 
ciations capable of leading to the revival of ideas belonging 
to other trains. Hence, in pursuing any line of thought, 
digressions are apt to occur ; ideas are apt to be recalled 
belonging to more or less disconnected lines of thought. 
While I am thinking of the rainbow as illustrating the 
laws of optics, Wordsworth's line, " I need not proud 
Philosophy to tell me what thou art," may intrude itself 
into my scientific train of ideas. 

Divergent reproduction may also occur in perceptual 
process. The child may be in the habit of both shaking his 
rattle and of putting it in his mouth to suck, and he may 
turn suddenly from the one occupation to the other. But 
such digressions play a very much more important part in 
ideational process. Ideal digression is always possible be- 
cause the flow of ideas is independent of the actual environ- 
ment present to the sense. If in thinking of a friend's 



DIVERGENT REVIVAL I 27 

affairs, I recall the idea of a book which I have lent him, 
and if this book happens to be Nansen's "Farthest North," 
my thoughts may fly off to the Arctic regions, leaving my 
friend altogether. But on the perceptual plane I could 
not begin to occupy myself with the North Pole unless it 
happened to be accessible to my senses. 

When divergent revival occurs, we may either leave the 
old train of ideas for a new one, as in this example, or we 
may proceed with the old. In proceeding with the old we 
may either disregard the ideas awakened by the collateral 
association or we may utilize them by incorporating them 
with requisite modifications in our ideal construction. 
Similarly, when we leave the previous train for a new one, 
we may in so doing retain and utilize materials derived from 
the old. A passage from Walter Scott's "Journal" may 
illustrate the incorporation of a collateral suggestion in the 
previous train of ideas. After his financial ruin, his mind 
dwelt persistently on the necessity of earning money by 
his literary labors in order to pay his debts. The ques- 
tion whether his writings will continue to win the favor 
of the public gives him especial concern, and he repeatedly 
recurs to it in his diary. 

The following is a characteristic passage : " Talking of 
writers, I finished my six pages, neat and handsome, yester- 
day. N.B. All night I fell asleep, and the oil dropped 
from the lamp upon my manuscript. Will this extreme 
unction make it go smoothly down with the public ? " 
Here the writer's main line of thought related to the prog- 
ress of his work and his prospects of success with the 
public. The dropping of the oil on his manuscript was a 
collateral suggestion. But he connects it in a playful way 
with his dominant interest, and so incorporates it with the 
previous train of ideas. Perhaps the oil will make his 



125 CONDITIONS OF IDEAL REVIVAL 

work go smoothly down with the public. My own use of 
this illustration exemplifies the reverse case of material 
derived from a previous train of thought being retained 
and utilized in another which displaces it by a divergent 
revival. After writing part of the present chapter I began to 
read Scott's " Journal," and came upon the passage quoted. 
The oddity of the mental transition from the dropping of 
oil on a manuscript to success with the public diverted my 
attention to psychological topics, and in particular to 
what I had just been writing about. I then noticed that 
the passage in Scott furnishes a fairly simple example of 
the way in which a train of ideas may be modified and 
developed by incorporating digressive revivals. 

The examples of divergent reproduction, to which I have 
referred, are examples of serial reproduction, and not of the 
revival of similars. The thought of my friend revives the 
idea of the book called " Farthest North," and of Arctic 
explorations, simply because I have lent this book to him. 
The book does not resemble him, or anything connected with 
him. But by far the most numerous and important cases 
of digressive revival are cases of the revival of similars by 
similars. Such revival is essentially digressive except when 
the main interest of thought explicitly consists in finding a 
group or series of similar things, as in classifying or search- 
ing for precedents. In general, the most copious and the 
most important materials for ideal construction are supplied 
by the revival of similars. It is the most common means of 
bringing before the mind in one view objects which have 
been previously presented in disconnected contexts remote 
from each other in space or time or both. Thus it is, as 
Bain remarks, the main foe of routine, and those minds in 
which it is a frequent mode of transition are more apt than 
others to form strikingly fresh ideal combinations. In par- 



DIVERGENT REVIVAL I29 

ticular, it is the most abundant source of materials for the 
process of comparison whereby the features common to 
similar objects and situations are consciously distinguished 
from those in which they differ. Thus it forms a line of 
demarcation between mind in the lower animals and mind 
in man. For, as James points out, there is little or no evi- 
dence in the case of animals for the reproduction of simi- 
lars followed by comparison. 

Of the way in which divergent revivals of this kind may 
be incorporated with the main train of thought, something 
will be said in the next chapter. Here it will be sufficient 
to refer to the simplest case, that in which the similarity 
simply illustrates, by making some feature of the current 
train of ideas more vivid and distinct. This is exemplified 
by all simile, metaphor, and parable. Scott describes a 
state of depression into which he fell after the death of his 
wife. "A kind of cloud of stupidity hangs about me, as 
if all were unreal that men seem to be doing and talking 
about." 1 A later entry in the journal is as follows: "I 
had sound sleep to-night, and waked with little or nothing 
of the strange dreamy feeling which made me for some 
days feel like one bewildered in a country where mist or 
snow has disguised those features of the landscape which 
are best known to him." Here his own mental condition 
suggests the similar feelings of one who finds the features 
of a familiar scene masked and transformed by mist or 
snow, and the suggestion is utilized to give emphasis and 
distinctness to the points of agreement which gave rise to 
the digressive revival. 

1 "Journal," Vol. V, p. 194. 



CHAPTER XII 

PRODUCTIVE ASPECT OF IDEATIONAL PROCESS 

Production and Reproduction. — The productive aspect 
of mental process presupposes the reproductive and is un- 
intelligible apart from it. But the two aspects are never 
identical; and association is sufficient to account only for 
one of them. It accounts for the recurrence of previously- 
experienced combinations, but not for the making of new. 
Hence such a phrase as " constructive association " which 
Bain uses is, strictly speaking, meaningless. It is wrong 
to say as he does that "by means of association" the 
mind has the power " to form combinations or aggregates, 
different from anything actually experienced." Associa- 
tion accounts for reinstatement. But it does not account 
for the new combination into which the reproduced pres- 
entation enters either in the process of reproduction or 
after it. It does not account for the fact that the repro- 
duced presentation modifies and is modified by the new 
context in which it becomes incorporated. 

The movements of a lion suggest to me those of a 
cat, and I compare them. If I have already noted their 
likeness and difference in the past, the process may be 
mainly one of reproduction. But if the comparison takes 
place for the first time, it is a new production which 
association does not adequately explain. Association 
explains why at the present moment the idea of a cat 
occurs to me. But it does not of itself account for the 
presentation of the resemblance and difference between a 



FORMS OF COMBINATION 131 

cat and a lion. This presentation cannot be reproduced, 
for it has not occurred in my experience before. The re- 
semblances and differences are observed for the first time. 
The thought of these resemblances and differences becomes 
associated in the process of attending to them with the 
idea of a cat and with that of a lion. But this association 
is a result, not a cause, of the new experience. Take 
another illustration. I am acquainted with houses 
and I am acquainted with things made of gold. But 
I have never hitherto thought of a house consisting 
of this material. I happen, however, to be looking at the 
house of a man who is exceedingly rich and very ostenta- 
tious of his wealth. I remark, " Brick and stone are hardly 
suitable for Smith's house ; it ought to be made of gold." 
Here the thought of Smith suggests that of gold by asso- 
ciation. But it is not association which makes me think 
of the gold in relation to the house. This is due to my 
being already interested in the house at the time when the 
idea of gold emerges. Still less does association account 
for the peculiar way in which the gold becomes related to 
the house in my thought. I have had experience of gold 
in the shape of ingots, or of coins used as money, or 
watch chains, rings, and the like, used for ornament. But 
I have never had experience of gold in the shape of a 
house and used for living and sleeping in. The idea of 
the gold as thus shaped and thus used cannot therefore be 
reproduced by association. It is a new mental product. 
It arises because I am interested in the material of the 
building before me in a particular manner. I am inter- 
ested in finding some material other than the actual brick 
or stone which shall be more in keeping with the general 
impression Smith and his belongings have made upon me. 
When gold suggests itself to my mind I utilize and trans- 



132 PRODUCTIVE ASPECT OF IDEATIONAL PROCESS 

form the idea so as to complete the thought which is 
in process of formation. The idea of the gold makes my 
thought determinate where it was previously indeterminate. 
But in fulfilling this function, in entering into this new rela- 
tion, the idea of the gold receives new determinations which 
are not and cannot be reproduced from previous experience. 

Forms of Combination. — Psychologists have not studied 
the forms and conditions of mental production as they 
have those of reproduction. They commonly content 
themselves with speaking vaguely of processes of combin- 
ing and separating, and they insist that the materials 
combined and separated must be given in past experience. 
Thus Locke tells us that the " dominion of man, in this 
little world of his own understanding, is much the same as 
it is in the great world of visible things." He can only 
" compound and divide the materials that are made to his 
hand." 

Against this view it must be urged in the first place, that 
it wrongly identifies all productive process with construc- 
tive process. But such operations as comparison and ab- 
straction, in their pure form, do not involve construction in 
the strict sense. We construct when we imagine gold sub- 
stituted for stone in the house we are looking at. But we 
do not construct in comparing a lion and a cat. There is 
merely an alternate focussing of attention now on the one 
and now on the other, so as to bring out their differences 
and resemblances. In the second place, the contrast be- 
tween the materials combined and the process of combining 
is very apt to mislead. It tends to conceal the fact that 
forms of combination are themselves part of the objective 
content of consciousness, and that in every constructive 
process we start with such a form derived from past experi- 



COMPARISON AND ABSTRACTION 1 33 

ences. Thus in our example, the way in which bricks, 
stones, etc., are put together is as much part of the pre- 
sented object we call a house as are the bricks and stones 
themselves. In imagining the house to be built of gold 
we retain this general plan of combination and only alter 
one of the items which enter into it. 

Comparison and Abstraction. — As we have indicated, 
there are two kinds of productive process. The first con- 
sists merely in a certain play of attention, such as is in- 
volved in Comparison. In the second, a relatively new 
object is constructed out of given materials in accordance 
with a given plan of combination or relational scheme. 

In Comparing, the total object of attention includes the 
two things compared. Each is focussed in turn, and there 
is an endeavor to keep the one still in view in the very 
act of concentrating attention on the other, so as mentally 
to superpose them. The result is that relations of resem- 
blance and difference emerge, and the points of agreement 
are more and more definitely distinguished from the points 
of disagreement. This distinction of common features from 
divergent features is called abstraction, when the diver- 
gence consists in the specific variation of a certain generic 
nature. Right-angled and obtuse-angled triangles agree 
in being triangular. But they are so in different ways. 
To distinguish between the common character of being tri- 
angular and its specific variations in different triangles is 
to abstract. Abstractions arise in connection with the pro- 
cess of comparison and also, as we shall see later, with the 
use of language. 

Comparison is essentially a productive process. For the 
generic nature as such is not apprehended at all until it is 
distinguished from the specific determination in which it is, 



134 PRODUCTIVE ASPECT OF IDEATIONAL PROCESS 

so to speak, embedded. To cognize triangles is one thing ; 
to cognize the fact of their being triangular is quite another. 
This is not presented to consciousness until the common 
character of various kinds of triangles is distinguished from 
their specific differences. Similarly, it is possible to be 
aware of a group of three stones, or of three knocks at a 
door, without being aware of the number three. In order 
to be aware of the number three, it is necessary to distin- 
guish the character of threeness, common to three stones, 
three knocks at a door, or three terms in a syllogism from 
the specific differences. It may be said that we are implic- 
itly aware of the abstract feature before the abstraction 
takes place. But what is apprehended implicitly is never 
for consciousness the same as what is apprehended explic- 
itly. It is a great mistake to regard the difference made 
by abstraction as consisting merely in a "leaving out," e.g. 
in leaving out the special features of this or that triangle 
so that only its triangular nature in general is attended to. 
For, in the first place, the term " leaving out " suggests a 
mere ignoring or disregarding. But this is only possible 
when the abstraction is already made. In the first instance 
what is required is not a mere ignoring but an express dis- 
tinction between the generic nature and its specific deter- 
mination. Again, the phrase " leaving out " is misleading 
in another way. It suggests that the abstract feature is 
already present to consciousness before other features are 
left out. But in fact the so-called residue no more exists 
for consciousness before the abstraction, than the statue 
exists in the block of marble before the sculptor has " left 
out " the chippings of his chisel. 

It should be added that we do not become aware of the 
specific determinations as such until we become aware of 
the generic nature as such. The two cognitions are strictly 



TYPES OF IDEAL CONSTRUCTION 1 35 

correlated. You must be aware of the general nature com- 
mon to various triangles in order to recognize this or that 
figure as a triangle of a certain kind. 

Types of Ideal Construction. — I cannot pretend to give 
anything like an exhaustive account of the forms of con- 
structive process. It is a subject which has hitherto 
received very inadequate treatment from psychologists. 
A brief reference to one or two main types of construction 
must here suffice. 

Starting with a certain form of combination or relational 
scheme, we may transfer it to new matter. Thus in com- 
posing a sonnet, the general sonnet structure is transferred 
to new words. All literary imitations, conscious or uncon- 
scious, come under this head. A writer saturated with 
Elizabethan literature may write sonnet after sonnet un- 
mistakably Shakespearean in rhythmic form, turn of expres- 
sion, and arrangement of matter. Yet there may not be a 
single characteristic phrase or sentence which is actually 
borrowed from Shakespeare, and the writer may not be even 
aware that he is imitating. Sometimes a definite model is 
expressly kept before the mind. Thus I may copy the 
rhythm of "Home they brought her warrior dead" by 
" Up they sprang and went away." In such parodies as 
those of Scott and Wordsworth in " Rejected Addresses," 
not only peculiarities of rhythm and cadence, but charac- 
teristic forms of thought and expression are transferred to 
new and laughably incongruous matter. Comte's con- 
struction of the polity of his positivist state furnishes an 
example of formal transference on a grand scale. The 
positivist state is framed on the formal analogy of the 
Roman Catholic Church. The transfer was probably more 
or less unconscious in Comte's mind. A man steeped in 



I36 PRODUCTIVE ASPECT OF IDEATIONAL PROCESS 

the formulas and modes of procedure of formal logic will 
even unconsciously apply them to all kinds of topics. The 
student of physical science, when he turns his attention to 
psychology, is likely to attempt to fit the facts of mental 
process into a mechanical schema. 

It is not, of course, possible to superinduce any form of 
combination on any kind of material. We cannot frame a 
hexameter verse of odors or colors, but only of articulate 
sounds. Even where the transfer is possible, it may be 
more or less imperfect. The form of a Latin hexameter 
is very imperfectly preserved in its English counterpart 
where accentuation is substituted for quantity. Further, 
the new matter may require and receive more or less modi- 
fication, including omissions and additions, in order to fit it 
into the relational schema. As a very simple example we 
may take the case of the pronunciation of words being 
altered for the sake of a rhyme or pun. The attempt to fit 
the facts of mental process into a scheme of mechanical 
relations is likely to lead to grave omissions and falsifica- 
tions. The same is true of any thoroughgoing attempt to 
construe the constitution of insect-communities, such as 
those of bees or ants, on the analogy of human society. 

In a second group, of cases, the point of departure is a 
given whole with a specific form of combination, and the 
construction consists in altering one or more of the partial 
items which enter into its composition. This is illustrated 
by our previous example of the mental substitution of gold 
for brick or stone as, the material of a house. Other simple 
instances are the mental picturing of a white crow or of an 
unpapered room as it will appear when painted. Sometimes 
the attempted alteration may be seen to be inconsistent 
with other features of the whole with which we are deal- 
ing. This difficulty may be removed by mentally modifying 



THE REVIVAL OF SIMILARS 1 37 

these features or by supposing them suitably modified 
without inquiring how. Or we may refuse to attend to the 
points of discrepancy. But if we are interested in these 
and also in retaining them unaltered, the construction is a 
failure. We may imagine a rope of sand, but we cannot, 
while keeping in view its composition, suppose it to be 
supporting a heavy weight. It will, however, do well 
enough if we merely wish to assign the making of it as a 
task for the devil. 

In a third kind of construction, part of a whole is given 
to start with, but the rest is initially indeterminate, and 
has to be filled in according to some more or less definite 
plan of combination. A familiar example is that of one 
man finishing a story which another has begun, as Wilkie 
Collins finished " Edwin Drood." Another is the supplying 
of gaps in manuscript where parts of the text have been 
obliterated. Under the same head comes the reconstruc- 
tion of the skeleton of an unknown species of animal where 
the only data are some of the bones and general anatomical 
analogies. Serial order is a relational form which lends 
itself in a peculiar degree to this kind of construction. It 
is essentially constituted by relations of betweenness or 
intermediacy : c is said to be intermediate between a and b 
in a certain respect, when it is in that respect more like 
each of them than they are like each other. One point on 
a line is between two other points when it is nearer to each 
of them than they are to each other. One shade of gray 
is between two others when it is darker than the first and 
lighter than the second. If b is thus intermediate between 
a and c, and if c again is intermediate between b and d and 
d between c and e, a b c d e is an ordered series. Now if 
part of such a series be given so that we can discern the 
mode of its formation, we are always able to think of it as 



I38 PRODUCTIVE ASPECT OF IDEATIONAL PROCESS 

continued, and we are often able to supply the continua- 
tion in more or less definite detail. If it is given with 
gaps in it, we are able to notice these as such, and some- 
times we can fill them in with more or less precision. In 
a graduated series of grays, where each is in a certain 
degree darker than its predecessor, there may occur a sud- 
den leap to a gray which is much darker than the form of 
the series requires. We shall then notice the discontinu- 
ity, and according as we are good or bad visualizers, we 
shall be able mentally to supply intermediate shades 
with more or less approach to precision. A very bad 
visualizer may not be able to do so at all. In the case of 
a series of lines diminishing in length according to some 
fixed ratio, the process of filling in gaps will be for most 
of us much more easy and accurate. Where we have to do 
with numerical series, the process of transformation by 
which a transition is made from any one term to that which 
succeeds it is entirely within our power. Hence we can 
continue such progressions or supply gaps in them with 
complete precision. Given the series 1, 2, 4, 8, 16 ••• we 
can prolong it ad libitum. A good example of mental con- 
struction based on serial order is afforded by the search 
for missing links in biological development. Owing, let 
us say, to the imperfection of the geological record, there 
are apparent lacunas in the succession of the forms of 
animal life. But the biologist can to some extent mentally 
supply these, and he sometimes finds his conjectures 
verified by subsequent discoveries. 

The Revival of Similars as determining Ideal Construc- 
tion. — A young child finds a dead fly lying on the window- 
sill. He looks at it curiously. Then he picks it up, and 
moves it along the window-pane, doing his best to make 



THE REVIVAL OF SIMILARS 1 39 

it behave as he has seen living flies behave. What has 
taken place in the child's mind ? First of all, the dead 
fly has called up the idea of a living fly crawling up the 
pane. This is mere revival of similars. In the next place 
the dead fly itself is ideally represented as crawling up the 
pane. This is an ideal construction based on the revival 
of similars. The dead fly is ideally transformed so as to 
assimilate it to the living fly. In the third place the child 
attempts by its own action, as far as may be, to actualize its 
idea, thus giving distinctness and vividness to its ideal 
construction. 

This example is so far typical that in all ideal construc- 
tion which takes its prompting cue from the revival of 
similars there is an attempt to make the similarity more 
complete by extending it to new points. 

Further, it is plain that if the child continues to think of 
the fly as without spontaneous motion, he cannot succeed 
in ideally representing it as crawling up the pane. The 
nearest approach he can make to this is to represent it as 
being passively moved as he himself actually proceeds to 
move it. This again illustrates a point common to such 
constructions. The assimilative transformation is condi- 
tioned and modified by the differences so far as these are 
mentally retained and recognized in the process. The 
result is the production not of exactly similar features but 
of features which correspond to each other, as far as the 
circumstances will allow. We find a corresponding to a, 
and we mentally supply /3 corresponding to b. 

In our illustration what goes on in the child's mind is 
probably only a play of fancy. He is therefore at liberty 
to ignore as he likes the actual features of the object he is 
dealing with so that his ideas may flow freely. He may 
represent the dead fly as alive and as creeping up the pane 



140 PRODUCTIVE ASPECT OF IDEATIONAL PROCESS 

of itself. Such freedom is possible when we give the reins 
to imagination. But it is otherwise when we are endeav- 
oring to think of things as they are, or when we are 
engaged in contriving means to practical ends. In such 
mental attitudes we submit ourselves to the control flowing 
from the nature of the object, and we are therefore bound 
to dismiss or modify ideal constructions which conflict 
with what we recognize as real. 

In contrivance of means to ends the interest of thought 
lies in ideally representing a series of changes within our 
power to produce, and such that when they actually take 
place they lead up to a desired result. We need an ideal 
bridge which shall actually bear our weight when we 
attempt to cross it by putting our plan in execution. In 
ideal construction of this kind, the revival of similars 
plays a most important part. Suppose that a man has 
occasion to throw a piece of paper to a great height. The 
paper flutters back again long before it reaches the place 
aimed at. Not only does it flutter back when he actually 
throws it, but he is compelled to think of it doing so when 
he ideally represents himself as throwing it. He can at- 
tain his end neither actually nor in idea. But as his mind 
dwells on the problem the partially similar case of throw- 
ing a stone suggests itself. He can easily suppose him- 
self throwing a stone as high or higher than his present 
mark. His difficulty will be solved if he can mentally 
assimilate the case of the paper to that of the stone, — if 
he can think of change in the paper, within his power to 
produce, which shall make it practically like the stone so 
far as the act of throwing is concerned. But in his past 
experience he has wrapped paper round things, and 
found that for purposes of manipulation the paper then 
became virtually part of the thing it was wrapped round. 



CONCEPTUAL CHARACTER OF IDEATIONAL PROCESS 141 

He proceeds mentally to assimilate the case of the present 
paper and stone to these remembered cases. He thinks of 
the paper as wrapped round the stone, and of himself as 
throwing the two together. Now his ideal construction 
moves freely to its end. An ideal bridge is made between 
actual conditions and the desired result. He has a plan 
which he proceeds to put into execution. Perhaps he fails, 
not because he cannot throw his missile high enough, but 
because he cannot direct it with sufficient accuracy. He 
has then to resort anew to ideal construction. It may be 
that the shooting of an arrow from a bow occurs to him, 
and he hits on the plan of tying the paper to the arrow. 
Thus both distance and accuracy of aim are secured, and 
he is at length successful. 

We may illustrate ideal construction in mere pursuit of 
knowledge as distinguished from practical contrivance by 
supposing a problem the inverse of that which we have 
just considered. Suppose the fact of the paper having 
been thrown successfully to be given as the starting-point 
of thought, and the problem to lie in discovering how it was 
done. This may lead to a train of thought analogous to 
that which gave birth to the original contrivance as we 
have described it. In this instance the datum to be 
explained is a result brought about by human agency. 
But the mental processes involved are essentially similar 
when we have to do with natural phenomena. Indeed, our 
insight into the constitution of the physical world is very 
largely based on the experiences gained in the course of 
our practical activity. 

To pursue this topic farther would lead to an investiga- 
tion of the psychology of processes which are treated from 
a different point of view in Logic under the head of infer- 
ence by analogy, induction, framing of hypotheses, and 



142 PRODUCTIVE ASPECT OF IDEATIONAL PROCESS 

the like. This would lead us too far. But the forms and 
conditions of mental construction, indicated however im- 
perfectly in the present chapter, form the basis of such 
logical operations. 

Conceptual Character of Ideational Process. — Conception 
consists in thinking of the universal in distinction from the 
particular. We have already seen that this takes place in 
the processes of comparison and abstraction. We have now 
to point out that ideational process in general is more or 
less conceptual in its nature. Ideal representation is always 
of universals, and of particulars only as instances or cases 
in which universals are particularized. 

Universals are of two kinds, the general or distributive 
and the collective or, as it is sometimes called, concrete. 
The conception of a class or of anything as belonging to a 
class is concerned with the general or distributive uni- 
versal. To think of what is general is to think of common 
characters as repeated or capable of repetition in a plurality 
of particular examples. When we think of horses as a 
class we think of certain characteristics, such as a certain 
kind of shape and a certain type of anatomical structure 
as found in this, that, and the other horse. When we 
think of an animal as being a horse, we think of it as a 
particular instance in which these common characters are 
exemplified. The collective universal is the form of com- 
bination or the relational plan of a complex unity, thought 
of in distinction from the particular details which it inter- 
connects. This may be illustrated by our conception of any 
mathematical progression when we have once understood 
the process of transition from each term to the following. 
Take, for instance, the series 1, 2, 4, 8, 16 ... n. We have 
a collective concept of the series when we have followed it 



CONCEPTUAL CHARACTER OF IDEATIONAL PROCESS 1 43 

so far as to discern the law of transition from one term to 
another. This pervading form of connection is thought of 
in distinction from the particular terms which we have 
specified or might go on to specify. Space and time are 
collective universals. Particular spaces are parts of space. 
They are not merely instances of a class concept ; they are 
combined in a continuous unity which may be thought of 
in distinction from its particular parts. Similarly, an indi- 
vidual person or thing is a collective universal. When we 
think of John Jones, we do not think merely of his particu- 
lar state at a certain moment. We think rather of the sys- 
tematic unity of his various successive states, actions, and 
relations, bodily and mental. Whatever states, actions, and 
relations have entered or will enter into this systematic 
unity we regard as belonging to the individual existence 
of John Jones, even though we do not know what they are. 
It is plain that ideal construction must be a conceptual 
process. The relatively new products which it forms are 
gradually built up by recombining in new ways partial 
features and aspects of the concrete detail of perceptual 
experience. In other words, it is a synthesis of universals, 
each of which gives a further specification of what the 
others leave indeterminate. We can no more use the 
total content of perceptual experience in the process of 
ideal construction than the builder can use for his purposes 
the stone as it is found in the quarry. In both cases put- 
ting together presupposes taking to pieces. The breaking 
up of the content of perceptual experience into its partial 
aspects may be called conceptual analysis : the reconstruc- 
tion may be called conceptual synthesis. Both processes 
go on together in intimate correlation. Not only is syn- 
thesis based on analysis ; the need for relatively new con- 
struction brings with it further conceptual distinctions. 



144 PRODUCTIVE ASPECT OF IDEATIONAL PROCESS 

The process of putting together prompts and determines 
the process of taking to pieces. The grand instrument of 
conceptual analysis and synthesis is language, and we 
shall gain a clearer insight into its nature when we come 
to treat of this topic in Chapter XIII. 

In ideal construction the materials combined are uni- 
versal of the general or distributive kind. It is the special 
function of the collective universal to furnish a plan or 
guiding principle of synthesis. The more complex and 
important types of constructive process, such as we have 
previously described, start with a certain form of combina- 
tion or relational scheme and proceed to fill in the details 
by progressive specification. 

It is not merely processes distinctly recognizable as con- 
structive which deal with universals in their distinction 
from particulars. This holds good of ideal representation 
in general. It holds good even for the case in which we 
recall a particular series of events in our own past history, 
where our dominant interest is in merely reproducing past 
perceptual experience without transforming it. Forgetful- 
ness and in particular the fragmentary and indistinct char- 
acter of mental imagery are sufficient to make the recall 
partial and indeterminate. Besides this, revival depends 
on previous attention. We reproduce in the main only 
those partial aspects of the concrete experience which we 
have noticed at the time. The characters which we recall 
form a conceptual extract from the concrete whole as orig- 
inally experienced. It is true that we think of the par- 
ticular as being particular. But we are consciously unable 
to do justice to its particularity, to its concrete and fully 
determinate detail. The characteristics through which we 
represent it are contrasted as general with their particular 
embodiment in the fact we are trying to represent. But 



CONCEPTUAL CHARACTER OF IDEATIONAL PROCESS 1 45 

even if ideal recall were more complete and determinate 
than it seems ever actually to be, there would still be noth- 
ing in the characters recalled capable of stamping the 
ideally represented object as a unique particular. It is 
always possible that these characters might also belong to 
other particulars, that they might be repeated in a plurality 
of instances. 

For ideal representation all particulars are particularized 
universals. We cannot ideally represent any fact, thing, 
or event as particular and singular except by reference to 
something else which is already assumed to be particular 
and singular. This would lead to an endless regress, were 
it not that a final centre of reference is found in the present 
moment of consciousness. Whatever I think of as par- 
ticular and singular is individualized for me by its continu- 
ous connection, however indirect and remote, with the here 
and now of my actual present experience. 



CHAPTER XIII 

LANGUAGE 

Communication of Ideas. — One man, A, communicates 
his ideas to another, B, when he acts so as to prompt and 
enable B to represent ideally what he himself is thinking 
of or has been thinking of. Similarly, a man may be said 
to communicate his own ideas to himself when he acts in 
such a way as to prompt and enable himself to think again 
of what he has thought of before, e.g. when he makes a 
note for future reference instead of merely trusting his 
memory. Ideal communication in this wide sense takes 
many forms, of which language is only one. 

Every material arrangement which has been purposely 
shaped by human beings so as to fulfil a plan forms a more 
or less permanent record of the trains of ideas of which 
it is the outcome. If I put my books and papers in 
order with a view to to-morrow's work, this prearrangement 
recalls to my mind, when to-morrow arrives, my preformed 
scheme. If, owing to interruptions, a week elapses before 
I can take up my task, the prearrangement of books and 
papers will still remind me of what I had intended to do, 
though without it my memory might have failed me, so 
that I should have been compelled to think out afresh a 
plan of procedure. When a man is engaged in construct- 
ing a tool or in building a hut or the like, his partially 
completed work prompts and enables him to rethink the 
thoughts which are embodied in it, and so to proceed both 

146 



LANGUAGE 1 47 

with head and hands from the point where he previously 
left off, even though a considerable interval of time has 
intervened. If what he has already effected is destroyed, 
the restoration may require a renewal of mental as well as 
of bodily labor. Thus the material embodiments of ideal 
construction are means by which a person communicates 
his own ideas to himself. They are also means by which 
ideas are conveyed from one mind to another. In observ- 
ing and using what the hands of his fellows have wrought, 
a man is prompted and enabled to follow out for himself 
the lines of thought which guided their actions. If he 
finds, let us say, an unfinished hut, he may understand the 
partially unfulfilled purpose which it embodies, and he may 
proceed to complete it according to the plan of the first 
builder, — a plan which may differ more or less from any 
that he would himself have independently devised. Simi- 
larly, if he finds some one actually engaged in building, he 
may enter into the other's ideas so as to cooperate in their 
fulfilment. Ideal communication of this kind is of enor- 
mous importance to the history of the human race. Man- 
kind has gradually shaped the material environment so 
as to embody human ideas and fulfil human purposes. In 
a civilized country like England hardly a single object 
meets our eyes which is not more or less shaped or ar- 
ranged by human agency in conformity with ideally repre- 
sented plans. There is therefore hardly anything in our 
material environment which does not prompt and enable 
us to rethink the thoughts of our fellow-men. Houses, 
clothes, steam engines, corn fields, gardens, roads, knives 
and forks, loaves of bread, are all expressions and abiding 
products of trains of ideas which have been thought out 
by our ancestors, and in a far less degree by our contem- 
poraries. They are the results of the cooperative thinking 



I48 LANGUAGE 

and willing of the human race, and in learning to under- 
stand and utilize them we renew in ourselves the processes 
of ideal construction which they express. We enter into 
our spiritual heritage. 

Such embodiments of ideal contrivance as we have 
hitherto considered are not primarily designed as means 
of communication. When a man builds a hut, his primary 
purpose is to obtain warmth and shelter, not to record his 
own ideas or communicate them to others. But there are 
cases in which communication is the principal end of our 
action. We may act with the express intention of directing 
our thoughts along certain lines or of making others think 
of the same objects which engage our own attention. 
This is so when a person ties a piece of string round his 
finger so as to remind himself of something which he has 
to do. He first attends to his proposed action in relation 
to the piece of string. He then ties the string round his 
finger so that it may be permanently present with him as 
a reminder. The string round his finger, so far as it 
fulfils its function, is a sign. A sign is some action or 
perceptible result of previous action expressly intended for 
communication of ideas to self or to others. We use a 
sign when we make a mark to show how far we have suc- 
ceeded in throwing a stone or shooting an arrow. A mile- 
stone is a sign. So is a landmark to fix the boundary 
between adjoining estates, or a heap of stones meant to 
indicate the highest point on a mountain. Language is a 
system of signs, but one of a very peculiar kind. We 
have now to explain wherein its peculiarity consists. 

Language. — To understand the nature and function of 
language we must bear in mind the general character of 
ideational process as concerned with universals. Language 



LANGUAGE I 49 

is essentially an instrument of conceptual analysis and 
synthesis. Its function as a means of communication is 
essentially bound up with its function as a tool to think 
with, — an apparatus for directing and controlling the 
course of ideal representation. The several signs which 
compose a linguistic system are each connected with some 
universal aspect or feature of concrete experience. Each 
of them serves to fix attention selectively on this universal 
in distinction from the particulars which exemplify it, and 
to recall this universal whenever it is itself mentally repro- 
duced or perceived anew. Thus language is an instrument 
of conceptual analysis. It is also an instrument of con- 
ceptual synthesis. For when a series of linguistic signs 
is either perceived or mentally imaged in appropriate 
order, attention is successively focussed on universals 
which supplement each other, uniting so as to form an 
ideally represented whole. 

Suppose that I begin to name in a desultory manner the 
various objects which now fall within my field of view. I 
name successively grass, fields, daisies, trees, this house, 
that stream, the gate on my left. Each word as I use it 
fixes my attention on some partial feature of the total 
scene, and each of these partial features is a universal. 
There is no single word used by me which might not 
be also applicable to other particular objects of like na- 
ture. This holds true even of such terms as " this " and 
" that " or such a phrase as " on my left." " This " means 
" what I am pointing towards " or " what I am looking at," 
or "what I have just mentioned," or "what I am now 
interested in." But these relations to myself are of a 
general character. I may point towards, look at, mention, 
or be momentarily interested in many and various par- 
ticulars. The word " this " does indeed direct my atten- 



1 50 LANGUAGE 

tion to some one particular thing. But it does not do so 
merely in virtue of its meaning as a linguistic sign. It 
does so because the circumstances under which it is 
applied are particular. My finger at this particular mo- 
ment is pointing in the direction of just one particular cow 
and no other. Hence when I say "this" cow, I thereby 
fix my attention on the particular cow to which I am 
actually pointing. The general meaning of the word 
" this " is particularized by the particular condition under 
which it is used. The same holds good of proper names. 
Ultimately they apply to particular persons or places be- 
cause they have been given to these persons or places 
under particular perceived conditions which restrict and 
determine their application. 

The desultory naming of the features of a scene which 
is actually spread out before the eye is predominantly 
a process of conceptual analysis. As the basis and pre- 
supposition of the analysis there is indeed a synthesis. 
But the synthesis is perceptual. The whole within which 
conceptual aspects are distinguished is initially given in 
its concrete unity as a total scene presented to sense- 
perception. But if, instead of naming at random this and 
that object within the field of view, the spectator pro- 
ceeds to describe what he sees in a connected way, his 
mental process is clearly one of conceptual synthesis as 
well as analysis. An ideal whole gradually develops be- 
fore his consciousness through the successive combination 
of its conceptual components, each supplementing the 
others. This is still more evident if he subsequently 
describes the scene to another person who has not been 
present at it. In this case the speaker himself no longer 
has the help of actual perception, so that he has to repro- 
duce his previous experience bit by bit through conceptual 



LANGUAGE 1 5 I 

synthesis. For the hearer the perceived whole has never 
existed ; hence his entire view of it is a product of ideal 
construction. It grows up gradually in his mind through 
a process of conceptual synthesis, prompted and guided 
by the words which successively strike his ear. 

The universals which constitute the meanings of words, 
and which unite so as to form a conceptual synthesis when 
the words are successively combined in connected dis- 
course, are themselves to a very large extent products 
of previous conceptual synthesis. At the outset, indeed, 
conceptual process takes its point of departure from per- 
ceptual experience and the first universals in order of time 
are merely conceptual extracts from concrete data. But 
as ideal construction proceeds these universals are them- 
selves submitted in a greater or less degree to conceptual 
analysis and reconstruction. The meanings of the corre- 
sponding words are characterized, described, or defined by 
combining other words representing universals of greater 
generality. Such words as dog, chair, orange, serve in the 
first instance merely to direct a child's attention to certain 
characters of perceived particular things which they pos- 
sess in common with other perceived particular things. 
They stand merely for conceptual extracts from concrete 
experience. But later on the child is able in some degree 
to express what he means by them by using other words, 
without needing to point to concrete examples. He can 
say that an orange is a round thing with a yellow skin hav- 
ing juicy stuff inside it which is good to eat. 

Such concepts as that of a dog, chair, or orange are pri- 
marily derived in an unanalyzed form from perceptual 
experience. So far as this is the case subsequent ideal con- 
struction only fulfils the function of making them articulate 
by definition and description. But it may also amplify the 



152 LANGUAGE 

concept by adding to it characters which have not been 
directly presented in perceptual experience. Thus the child 
may be told that oranges grow on trees. This becomes, for 
the future, part of what he means when he uses the word 
"orange." If he has never seen an orange tree with fruit on 
it, the characteristic of growing on trees has been incor- 
porated in his concept of an orange purely by conceptual 
synthesis. Many concepts are wholly or mainly formed 
through conceptual synthesis with little or no basis in 
corresponding concrete experiences. Evidently, objects 
which are known only through the descriptions given 
by others are represented only by an ideal construction. 
Thus my conception of the great wall of China is entirely 
the result of an ideal construction made possible by the 
reports of travellers. The same is true of my conception 
of the ancient Britons, or of Julius Caesar, or of the history 
of Jack the Giant-killer. All collective concepts which 
possess a high degree of complexity are mainly formed in 
this way. In the main the British constitution signifies 
for me the unified result of a highly complex conceptual 
synthesis. My experience of it in the concrete has been 
exceedingly partial and fragmentary. The same holds 
good for such collective concepts as that of the animal 
kingdom, organic life, the solar system, my friend Jones, 
the universe. 

To sum up : As an instrument of thought, language 
fixes as permanent possessions of the mind the results of 
conceptual analysis and synthesis so that they may be uti- 
lized as occasion demands in subsequent ideal construction. 
As an instrument of communication it is the means by 
which an individual prompts and controls processes of con- 
ceptual analysis and synthesis in the minds of others. 
These two functions of language are intimately united and 



LANGUAGE OF NATURAL SIGNS 1 53 

interdependent. It is only in so far as man, by the use of 
language, signifies his own thoughts to himself, that he is 
enabled to make others think corresponding thoughts. On 
the other hand, conceptual thinking could not pass beyond 
a very rudimentary stage in the absence of such ideal com- 
munication between different minds as language alone 
makes possible. The development of ideal construction 
is essentially a social affair. A communicates a train of 
ideas to B ; B further develops it in accordance with his 
own past experiences and the results of his own past think- 
ing. In this way many minds cooperate in the formation 
of conceptual systems as if they were a single mind. Apart 
from such cooperation it may be doubted whether ideal 
construction could develop so far as to be of much service. 
It may be doubted whether it could be of much use to a 
solitary animal. 

Language of Natural Signs. — It is only oral speech 
which can in strict propriety be called language. But by 
a convenient extension the term has come to be applied to 
other systems of signs fulfilling essentially similar func- 
tions. Thus we speak of written language, of the finger 
language of deaf-mutes, and of the language of imitative 
gestures. 

The signs which compose a language in this wide sense 
may be of very various natures. They are more or less fit 
for their function according as they fulfil more or less 
adequately certain requirements. They are better adapted 
as vehicles of thought and communication the more uni- 
formly and unconditionally they are producible at will in- 
dependently of variable circumstances, the more easily and 
clearly perceptible they are when produced, and the more 
rapidly they can succeed each other without loss of dis- 



154 LANGUAGE 

tinctness. All these requirements are most adequately 
met by oral speech. Under normal conditions, a man is 
always able to utter articulate sounds at will. The sounds 
uttered are easily perceptible both to speaker and hearer, 
and they are distinctly apprehensible even when they fol- 
low each other with great rapidity. The manual alphabet 
of the deaf and dumb satisfies the same condition in a large 
measure, though not so completely. Written language is 
not so uniformly producible at will as oral speech. It pre- 
supposes the presence of writing materials. But it has the 
great advantage of not being evanescent. When once pro- 
duced it persists as a permanent record, Littera scripta 
mauet. 

Our ordinary oral speech and writing and the artificial 
finger language which is taught to deaf-mutes, are all con- 
ventional systems of signs. The nexus between sign and 
thing signified depends merely on their conjunction in past 
experience, on their having been attended to together. 
Otherwise there is nothing in the nature of the sign itself 
tending to suggest its meaning. The sound of the word 
" cow " has no more intrinsic connection with the animal 
than any other sound. It is otherwise with what is called 
the language of natural signs or imitative gestures. A 
natural sign has some feature in common with what it rep- 
resents, and it is this community of nature which primarily 
forms the link of connection between them. If I imitate 
the mewing of a cat, this tends to call up the idea of the 
animal, because the sound I make more or less resembles 
the sound cats make. Hence any person who had heard a 
cat mew might understand me at once. The word "cat," 
on the contrary, would be unintelligible except to those 
who had previously learned its application. 

In all probability the most primitive form of language 



LANGUAGE OF NATURAL SIGNS 1 55 

was a system of natural signs, — of imitative gestures and 
sounds. It is hard to see how a conventional system could 
become established in the absence of a degree of mutual 
understanding and of insight into the nature of signs which 
already presuppose the use of some kind of language. But 
natural signs are under favorable conditions self-inter- 
preting, and their first production is easily explained as a 
consequence of the tendency of vivid ideas to issue in 
corresponding movements. 

The motor tendencies of ideas, in so far as they cannot 
take shape in practical adjustments, are reduced to move- 
ments of expression. The idea of eating will not enable 
a man to eat, unless food is within his reach. But he 
can at least place his hand on his stomach and imitate 
the movement of mastication with his mouth. Similarly, 
the idea of his own warlike prowess will not enable him 
to fight unless an enemy is at hand. But there is nothing 
to prevent his brandishing a weapon and going through 
the pantomime of fighting. Such imitative actions serve 
to sustain and develop the corresponding ideas, and they 
are at the same time a means of communicating these ideas 
to others. If a hungry man, A, is in presence of another 
man, B, who has a store of food, A's idea of food will 
be an idea of food as coming from B, and in using imi- 
tative gestures he will endeavor to draw B's attention to 
them. He will use them as means of determining the flow of 
ideas in the mind of B, and so of obtaining food for himself. 

Natural signs fulfil the same essential functions as con- 
ventional signs, though far more imperfectly. They are 
instruments of conceptual analysis and synthesis. Each 
imitative gesture expresses a universal, and the combina- 
tion of such gestures in a context expresses a synthesis of 
universals, each determining what is indeterminate in the 



156 LANGUAGE 

others. In this way prolonged descriptions and narratives 
are possible through natural signs alone, and there may be 
complex interchange of ideas between persons who have 
had no previous intercourse, and who possess no conven- 
tional language in common. 

But imitative gestures have great and obvious defects as 
compared with purely conventional signs. It is possible 
to select at will the most convenient and manageable 
material for conventional language. Thus the articulate 
sounds of ordinary speech are both producible and per- 
ceptible with more ease, readiness, precision, and celerity 
than is possible in expressive pantomime. They are pro- 
ducible when the hands and the body generally are other- 
wise occupied ; they are perceptible in the dark, and at a 
distance, when gestures appealing to the eye would be use- 
less. Besides these external defects, natural signs labor 
under a more essential short-coming. They are incapable 
of expressing universals of a relatively high order of gen- 
erality, — universals which come to be conceived through 
the farther conceptual analysis of the results of previous 
conceptual analysis. " To make," says Tylor, " is too ab- 
stract an idea for the deaf-mute : to show that the tailor 
makes the coat, or that the carpenter makes the table, he 
would represent the tailor sewing the coat and the carpen- 
ter sawing and planing the table." It is difficult or impos- 
sible to express imitatively what is common to all kinds of 
making in abstraction from what is specific in this or that 
kind of making. But if we use a conventional sign, such 
as the word "make," the difficulty disappears. Another 
allied deficiency of gesture language is its incapacity to 
furnish brief and compact expression for the unified results 
of prolonged and complex processes of ideal construction. 
Such a collective concept as that of the British Constitution 



LANGUAGE OF NATURAL SIGNS 1 57 

could not perhaps be expressed by mere pantomime at all. 
Certainly it could not be expressed by a single imitative 
gesture or by a short series of such gestures. 

Owing to their superior effectiveness as vehicles of 
thought and communication, the conventional signs of oral 
speech have in the main displaced imitative gestures. Con- 
ventional systems are transmitted from parents to children ; 
they represent in their structure and vocabulary the cumu- 
lative result of the cooperative thinking of many minds in 
the past history of the race. Every child in learning his 
mother-tongue assimilates in outline a whole system of con- 
ceptual analysis and synthesis, which has been gradually 
developed by the mental activity of past generations. I 
now proceed to give some indication of the mode in which 
children enter into possession of this spiritual inheritance. 

Development of Language in the Child. — Long before 
the child begins to use or understand words, he acquires 
what we may call phonetic material, which is afterward 
utilized for the expression of thought. He exercises his 
vocal organs in the production of various sounds. At first 
this vocal exercise is purely spontaneous ; but as time goes 
on, it becomes increasingly prompted and guarded by imita- 
tion. The earliest cries are primitive expressions of emo- 
tion and organic sensation, — hunger, fear, surprise, 
impatience, comfort, exhilaration. Vowel sounds such as 
ah, oo, a occur first ; they soon become strung together in 
such series as at, a, aw, a. The child lies on his back and 
crows. The vowel sounds then become combined with 
consonants so as to form syllables, fra, ma, ba. By the 
time this stage is reached, the continuous stream of bab- 
bling utterance is no longer expressive of special emotions 
or organic states. It is a favorite form of play. The 



I58 LANGUAGE 

child rejoices in the sounds produced, and in his own 
power of producing them, and in the motor activity of 
larynx, tongue, and lips. Hence, he persists in his occupa- 
tion for the sake of the pleasure it affords. He tends to 
repeat sounds which interest him; hence, the reduplications 
which form so prominent a feature of infantile babble. 
Through such spontaneous activity the power of producing 
a variety of syllabic sounds is acquired. This is the 
necessary basis and presupposition of the imitation of the 
sounds made by others. For imitation is only possible on 
condition that the imitator is already able to do something 
more or less similar to the act which he copies. 1 

Imitation is at first very imperfect. The sounds uttered 
by the child become assimilated to those which he hears 
only by a slow and gradual process. At first his imitative 
speech rather resembles his own spontaneous utterances 
than the words imitated. He simplifies complex sounds, 
saying poot for puss, bik for biscuit, ka for candle, btit for 
butter, hamfest or hanky for handkerchief, pinkie for peri- 
winkle. The reduplication of infantile babbling recurs and 
persists in the imitative stage. The child says moo-moo and 
gee-gee. Mothers and nurses have learnt to meet the baby 
requirements by using a traditional nursery language offer- 
ing for imitation what experience of the past has shown to 
be most easily imitable. 

Even before the imitative stage is reached, children 
show a certain understanding of words which they hear. 
But we must not assume that this " understanding " in- 
volves at the outset the proper use of verbal signs as 
expressive of ideas, — as instruments of conceptual analysis 
and synthesis. Suppose that a baby hears the word 
"mamma," and that in consequence he turns his head and 

1 See Chapter VIII, p. 82. 



LANGUAGE OF NATURAL SIGNS 1 59 

eyes until he sees his mother, and that then he stretches 
out his hands, smiles and crows. Exactly the same effect 
might have been produced by the sound of his mother's 
voice, by the rustle of her dress, by her touch, or by her 
appearance in the dim margin of his field of view. If it 
had been so produced the psychical process might have 
been merely perceptual in its character. It might have con- 
sisted merely in a motor reaction, prompted by a preformed 
association. This is the only legitimate interpretation 
when the child's general behavior indicates that its men- 
tal processes are mainly or wholly in the perceptual stage. 
Now, in the absence of other evidence, we have no reason 
to suppose that the sound mamma operates in any other 
way than the sound of the mother's voice, the rustle of her 
dress, her touch, or her appearance in the margin of the 
visual field. The mere fact that in the case we are con- 
sidering the child's behavior is evoked by what for us is 
a word, really makes no difference. At a somewhat later 
stage, children spontaneously pronounce single words when 
they are attending to associated things, persons, actions, 
or situations. In itself this does not necessarily imply any 
essentially new development. The sight of an object may 
prompt the motor reaction of vocal utterance in accordance 
with a preformed association, just as it may prompt the 
motor activities of grasping and lifting to the mouth. 

Such perceptual use and understanding of words is com- 
mon among the higher animals, such as the parrot and the 
sheep dog. But the normal human child does not remain 
as they do, mainly or wholly on the perceptual level. 
There supervenes a stage in his mental history in which he 
becomes increasingly capable of distinguishing the univer- 
sal from the particular, and of ideally representing absent 
objects by means of their universal characteristics. Lan- 



l6o LANGUAGE 

guage then becomes the most important and indispensable 
instrument for developing this capacity. As the associa- 
tion becomes fixed between a name and certain features 
common to many otherwise variable objects, the child 
in pronouncing the name makes these common features, as 
such, emphatic and prominent in consciousness, in dis- 
tinction from the concrete detail of perception. The name 
thus becomes an instrument by which he controls the 
direction of his own mental activity. The beginnings of 
this stage of development are manifested in his outward 
behavior. He repeats the name again and again in attend- 
ing to the object with a zest and evident enjoyment suffi- 
cient to show that in doing so he is going through a mental 
operation of absorbing interest. It is a true "greeting of 
the spirit." When the child sees a caterpillar and calls 
it a pin, he thereby singles out and brings into the focus 
of attention the character in which it resembles a pin, — 
its similar relation to the act of picking up. Here we 
have in rudimentary form the peculiar analytic function of 
language. The use of the word breaks up the concrete 
content of actual perception into general or abstract 
features, and enables us to concentrate attention on these 
separately. To a certain extent of course selective atten- 
tion of this kind may take place without verbal signs. 
But without such signs it can be only evanescent and 
fluctuating. 

It is language alone which gives a permanent power of 
concentrating attention at will on universal features — 
features which could not be singled out by any adjustment 
of the organs of sense. When the milk in the bottle is all 
gone, when a flame is put out, when music ceases, when a 
drawer is closed, there is a certain common character be- 
longing to all these experiences. They all involve the 



LANGUAGE OF NATURAL SIGNS l6l 

peculiar experience of missing a continuation. But this 
character could not be marked off for separate considera- 
tion in a definite and permanent way without the use of 
language. The application of the name makes this possible. 
One child, for instance, used the word "atta," i.e. all gone, 
in these and similar situations. Hearing words applied by 
others has, of course, a like effect, and also a further utility. 
The child's thoughts are shaped and guided by others as he 
could not shape and guide them himself. The words which 
he hears lead him to discriminate conceptual features of a 
given situation which he would not otherwise have singled 
out for separate notice. All this happens when words are 
used in reference to particulars actually present to percep- 
tion. The same words, when they are heard in the absence 
of the corresponding objects, will call up ideal representa- 
tions ; and their actual utterance or the mental imaging of 
them by the child will enable him both to call up ideas at 
will, and to fix and detain them as objects of attention. 

The next step is the combination of words in a context 
so as to characterize a complex situation. Each word has 
its own distinctive meaning, and the meanings unite and 
supplement, and more or less modify each other, so as to 
form an intelligible whole. In this way the synthetic 
function of speech begins to base itself on the analytic. 
Probably the commencement of this development is found 
in the understanding of verbal combinations which the 
child hears from others, rather than in his own spontane- 
ous utterances. I may refer to a very elementary illustra- 
tion drawn from my observation of a child of my own. 
He had so far learned to understand the words " dada's 
nose " that he promptly touched the corresponding object 
when he heard them. He had learned, at least in a per- 
ceptual way, to connect the word " baby " with himself. 



I 62 LANGUAGE 

But when I asked, " Where is baby's nose ? " he was at first 
either merely puzzled, or pointed to mine. At a later stage 
he not only distinguished baby's nose from dada's nose, 
but could readily understand when the respective noses of 
aunts, uncles, and other friends and relatives were men- 
tioned. The word " nose " had then become for him the 
sign of a universal capable of having its meaning variously 
determined in varying verbal contexts. Very soon the child 
commences freely to combine words on his own initiative, 
so as to express conceptual synthesis. A baby begins by 
simply saying "baba" when he is sleepy, and "mamma" 
when he sees his mother. It is distinctly a new departure 
to say " mamma baba " when he wants to sleep in his 
mother's arms. At first these rudimentary sentences con- 
sist of only two words, e.g. "good bow-wow," "naughty 
bunny." Most often these simple verbal combinations 
are used where we should frame much more elaborate 
sentence-structures. But we must not suppose that the 
baby sentence is in reality the psychological equivalent of 
ours. The baby says " papa cacker " where we should 
say "papa has got crackers." He has distinguished and 
combined the concepts expressed by "papa" and " cracker." 
But we must not assume that he has distinguished the con- 
cepts which we express by "has" and "got" or by the 
combination " has got." So when he says " auntie cake " 
in presence of the fact that his aunt has given him a cake, 
we must not suppose that he really performs the conceptual 
analysis and synthesis corresponding to the missing words 
" has given me." Usually toward the end of the second 
year more complex sentences are framed, e.g. " Dada toe 
toe ba " — Father is to go and put his toes into the water, 
" Moo ku baby shee " — Baby sees moon in the sky. 

Along with the increasing power of constructing verbal 



LANGUAGE OF NATURAL SIGNS 1 63 

combinations there is a corresponding increase in the power 
of interpreting the language used by others. It is most im- 
portant to note that in this process the child is perpetually 
learning to understand unfamiliar words and to attach more 
correct and precise meanings to those which are relatively 
familiar. What others say is often couched in terms which 
his previous experience makes only partially intelligible. 
To the meaning of some words he has little or no clew, or 
a wrong clew from previous acquaintance with them. But 
the words he does understand suggest an ideal construc- 
tion which invests the others with meaning. He interprets 
them by their context as we may interpret occasional words 
which we do not know in reading a foreign language. The 
results thus obtained are continually being sifted, and 
either corroborated or modified or annulled by the recep- 
tion which his own application of language meets with 
from others. Sometimes his use of words and phrases 
gains him wondering admiration ; sometimes it excites 
laughter. Sometimes he fails to make himself understood 
at all ; sometimes his mistake is formally pointed out and 
the right language suggested to him. Thus by a process 
of constant experiment with varying successes and failures, 
he gradually masters his mother-tongue and the system of 
conceptual analysis and synthesis which it represents. 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE WORLD AND THE SELF AS KNOWN THROUGH IDEAL 
CONSTRUCTION 

Self-consciousness and the consciousness of an external 
world develop concurrently in the most intimate union and 
interdependence. There is a constant and continuous give 
and take between them. Each is perpetually borrowing of 
the other and repaying the loan with usury. This is true at 
the perceptual level. The inner being of external things is 
apprehended only as a counterpart of the percipient's own 
subjective experience. On the other hand, it is only in 
contrast with external things and in relation to them that 
he becomes distinctively conscious of self. Self-projection 
is a condition of self-consciousness. When we turn from 
perceptual process to ideational we find this interdepen- 
dence of self-consciousness and world-consciousness as- 
suming indescribably complex and varied forms. The 
growth of the individual's acquaintance with the external 
world is in itself an extension of his own being — a devel- 
opment of the object of his own self-consciousness. As 
his knowledge of his material environment becomes more 
and more extensive and systematic, his control over it 
becomes greater and his interest in it becomes progres- 
sively more varied, more comprehensive, and more highly 
organized. 

But all this could not take place through the individual's 
own unaided efforts. The ideal construction through which 

164 



THE WORLD AND THE SELF 1 65 

the external world becomes known is a social function. 
Many minds cooperate in the process and have a joint prop- 
erty in the product. All progress in such cooperative think- 
ing and willing involves progress in mutual understanding, 
sympathy, and interest. This again essentially implies a 
further development of self-projection. Each individual 
can only represent to himself the thought, perceptions, 
emotions, desires, volitions, etc., of his fellows by reference 
to his own subjective experiences. He must interpret the 
manifestations of their mental life by 'conceptual analysis 
and reconstruction of the material supplied by his own 
mental life. In this process his own self-consciousness 
inevitably becomes more and more definite and distinct. 
He comes to know himself in learning to know others. 
Further, this consciousness of self is always the conscious- 
ness of a socially related self. The individual not only 
becomes aware of resemblances and differences between 
himself and others ; he becomes aware of himself as 
related to others in the social unity of cooperative thinking, 
willing, and acting. His own thoughts, volitions, and 
actions appear to him as fragmentary portions of a whole, 
depending for their meaning and efficiency on their rela- 
tion to thoughts, volitions, and actions of others. His 
view of the attitude of others toward him, what they think 
of him and expect from him, and how they feel in relation 
to him, becomes an integral part of his own self -conscious- 
ness. There is thus progressively developed in him a vast 
range of organized interests having for their object the 
psychical life of his fellow-men. This again constitutes 
an extension of his own being. His social interests are 
indeed the most important part of himself. 

To trace in detail the correlated development of self- 
consciousness and consciousness of the external world is a 



1 66 THE WORLD AND THE SELF 

task which vastly exceeds our limits. We must be content 
to note only certain points of special interest. In doing 
so it will be necessary for purposes of exposition to deal 
separately with aspects of the total process which are in 
fact inseparably united. 

General Nature of Antithesis between Self and External 
Reality at the Ideational Level. — The distinction between 
self and external object as it exists for ideal representa- 
tion partly falls within the process of ideal construction 
itself and partly consists in a contrast between idea and 
percept. The case of practical contrivance is typical and 
of primary importance. In practical contrivance we 
endeavor to construct an ideal bridge between our pres- 
ent situation and a desired result. Our interest demands 
that the bridge shall be such as to bear us to our desti- 
nation when we actually come to use it. But this is pos- 
sible only so far as our ideal construction conforms to an 
ideally represented reality which is beyond our control. 
Just as motor activity in perceptual process can only attain 
success by adjustment to perceived conditions, so practical 
contrivance essentially involves adjustment to similar con- 
ditions as ideally represented. In forming our plan of pro- 
cedure we have to conform the course of our thought to the 
ideally represented combination of circumstances constitut- 
ing the preexisting situation — to the ideally represented 
changes in this situation which we foresee as consequences 
of various possible modes of behavior on our part. What- 
ever in fact would hinder or facilitate the body's power of 
action in executing a plan also hinders or facilitates so far 
as it is ideally foreseen, ideal construction of the plan. In 
attempting to escape from a prison a man may be actually 
stopped by a wall which he cannot climb. In framing a 



GENERAL NATURE OF ANTITHESIS 1 67 

plan of escape, the thought of the high wall will block the 
flow of ideal construction just as its actual presence would 
block the course of motor activity. In actually attempting 
to escape, the discovery of a ladder might overcome the 
obstacle presented by the wall. Similarly, the obstacle to 
ideal construction presented by the thought of the wall might 
be surmounted by the ideal anticipation of finding a suitable 
ladder in an accessible place. On the perceptual level the 
externally real consists in perceived conditions to which 
motor activity must adapt itself if it is to be efficient in the 
attainment of its ends. In ideal prearrangement of future 
action, the externally real consists in ideally represented 
conditions of analogous nature, to which the flow of ideal 
construction must adapt itself in order to be successful. 
On the other hand, whatever either in perceptual or idea- 
tional process is merely dependent on subjective initiative 
is to that extent not regarded as belonging to the external 
object. On the perceptual level whatever variations of our 
sense-experience are uniformly producible at will by free 
motor activity, are so far referred to the self rather than to 
the not-self. Similarly, the flow of ideal representation is 
regarded as a process in the self, so far as it depends merely 
on subjective interest working through the mechanism of 
preformed associations. Thus in practical contrivance, the 
pursuit of the end is a process of our own minds depending 
on our interest in a desired result. It is we who are form- 
ing a plan. It is our preformed associations and present 
interest which determine the successive recall and disap- 
pearance of ideas in a train. It is we who try this and that 
ideal combination in turn though we have to test them by 
reference to conditions which we think of as determined for 
us and not by us. But even the act of submitting to this test 
is ours. We submit ourselves to it because of our interest 



1 68 THE WORLD AND THE SELF 

in the end which we are pursuing. It is we who seek for 
the objective control proceeding from the nature of the 
ideally represented facts, and in so far as we fail to find it 
we are baffled. We are active in order that we may be 
passively determined, and we can be passively determined 
only in so far as we are active. The whole process is one 
of interaction between subject and object. The subject 
experiments in the way of ideal construction, but it is the 
object which determines the result. 

Besides this antithetic correlation of self and the externally 
real within ideal process, ideas, as such, are contrasted with 
perceptual experience as belonging more distinctively to 
the self, — as involving a less direct relation to external 
reality. In discussing the perceptual consciousness of self 
and external object we saw that the line of demarcation 
between them comes to be drawn at the surface of the body. 
The skin and what lies inside it is apprehended as belong- 
ing to the self; what lies outside it is apprehended as not-self. 
Now ideational process occurs independently of the actual 
presence of external things in perceived relations to the 
body of the percipient. We can ideally represent what is 
absent in space or past in time. Perception ceases when 
we go away from the thing perceived or turn our sense- 
organs in a different direction. But we can, so to speak, 
carry our ideas about with us, wherever we go. They are 
independent of the changing spatial relations of outside 
things to our bodies. On the other hand, ideational process 
is positively continuous with bodily experience ; it is con- 
nected with various phases of emotion and the attendant 
organic sensations ; it occasions varying tension and relaxa- 
tion of the muscles and varying movement of expression 
or of practical activity. Thus it comes to be regarded as 
a process going on inside the body independently of the 



GENERAL NATURE OF ANTITHESIS 1 69 

changing environment. It comes to be regarded as a pro- 
cess taking place in the self apart from external things. 
By a metaphor which common sense is prone to accept as 
literal fact, what is ideally represented is looked on as a 
mere copy of the external thing taken from the perceived 
original. 

The same result is also reached in another and even 
more important way. In practical contrivance and in the 
pursuit of knowledge through ideal process we seek for ob- 
jective control from the ideally represented objects. But 
in many respects this objective control is accorded to us in 
a comparatively imperfect measure, so long as we confine 
ourselves to ideal representations. We put questions to 
which we can obtain no decisive answer with the data at 
our disposal. 

In planning to escape from a building in which he is 
imprisoned a man may ask in vain whether he will or will 
not be able to climb the outside wall, whether he will or 
will not be able to find a ladder. In the actual execution 
of his ideal scheme these doubts are settled. What was 
indeterminate for ideal construction is unambiguously fixed 
in the corresponding perceptual experience. But percep- 
tual experience not only yields fresh data which settle ques- 
tions otherwise unanswerable ; it may also yield fresh data 
which are inconsistent with the results of ideal construc- 
tion. The best laid plans may fail when they are actually 
tried. They are always liable to break down, owing to un- 
foreseen circumstances. The prisoner may be proceeding 
on the assumption that once he is over the wall he will have 
no further difficulty. In fact, he may find his escape barred 
by another wall or by men keeping guard. Where such 
conflict arises between perception and idea, it is of course 
the ideal representation which must give way. Ideal construe- 



170 THE WORLD AND THE SELF 

tion which seeks to know external reality may transcend 
perceived facts ; it may extend knowledge beyond the 
limits of what is perceptible by the senses. But it defeats 
its own end if it contradicts perceptual data ; for it is 
ultimately founded on perception. Its materials are drawn 
through conceptual analysis from the concrete content of 
perceptual experience, and its function is to connect de- 
tached data of perception in a system through a process 
of conceptual synthesis. If the data refuse to take their 
place in the system, the ideal construction so far fails and 
must be remodelled. Hence the continually recurring dis- 
crepancies between ideal anticipations and corresponding 
perceptions lead us to regard ideal representation as rela- 
tively unreal. We contrast our opinions, expectations, 
hypotheses, conjectures, as possessions of our own minds, 
with what we call the facts of actual experience as some- 
thing independent of us. 

It is now time to call to mind what we have been dis- 
regarding — the fact that ideal construction is a social func- 
tion and not the work of the individual in isolation from 
his fellows. The perceptual data which it utilizes and 
unifies are given to many minds, and many minds cooper- 
ate in the process of unification. Our next step will be to 
discuss the psychology of social communion, or of inter- 
subjective intercourse as it has been called. We shall 
then consider more specially its influence on the develop- 
ment of self-consciousness and the consciousness of the 
external world. 

Growth of Intersubjective Intercourse. — From the first 
there is a marked difference between the child's relations 
to persons and his relations to inanimate things. It is not 
merely that the bodily appearance and movements of other 



GROWTH OF INTERSUBJECTIVE INTERCOURSE IJl 

human beings resemble his own. What is of even greater 
importance is that their behavior is connected in an alto- 
gether peculiar manner with the furtherance and hindrance 
of his interests. In general, inanimate things do not spon- 
taneously change so as to adapt themselves to his needs and 
requirements or to interfere with his actions. In order to 
make them subservient to his will when they are not so 
already, he must control them by active movements in the 
way of direct or indirect manipulation. He must come in 
contact with them and put forth effort against resistance. 
But the behavior of nurse and mother spontaneously adapts 
itself to the child's varying wants and impulses without hav- 
ing to be controlled in this way. The baby may stretch his 
hand toward his rattle, but if it is not within reach, it does 
not move toward him and place itself in his hand of its 
own accord, however much he may cry. But if the nurse 
is present, she may bring it to him. Her action thus fits 
in to his as its continuation and completion. Grown-up 
persons are perpetually intervening to satisfy requirements 
which the child cannot fulfil at all, or can only fulfil in part, 
by its unaided activity. From early infancy the unpleas- 
ant sensations arising from tight and damp clothes, from 
cold, hunger, and indigestion, are continually being removed 
by nurse or mother. They are also constantly doing things 
to amuse or console the baby, making noises for it, singing 
to it, fondling it, seeking to direct its attention to attractive 
objects, playing peep-bo, rolling balls, etc. 

As the child's activities become more varied and com- 
plex, he meets with more varied and complex cooperation 
in them from his social environment. He finds others 
constantly intervening to help him, and he learns to seek 
their intervention and to count on it. The means which 
prove effective in influencing their behavior and gaining 



I72 THE WORLD AND THE SELF 

their assistance consist precisely in such actions as have 
no effect on inanimate things. He may get an apple peeled 
by pushing it toward his father or mother, but not by 
pushing it toward the knife. In general, it is just at the 
points where he finds himself impotent to attain his ends 
by manipulation or analogous action on external things, 
that other persons intervene to supply what is wanting to 
continue and complete his otherwise unavailing efforts. 
When he is beginning to learn to walk, his mother catches 
him just when he would otherwise fall. At a certain stage 
of development, he takes an almost inexhaustible pleasure 
in letting things fall on the floor. But he cannot pick 
them up again, and therefore without assistance this amuse- 
ment would be soon cut short. It is the nurse who picks 
up the spoon or rattle and restores it to him after each fall. 
Her action is not his, but it is the complement and con- 
tinuation of what he does himself, the complement and 
continuation required for the fulfilment of his interest. It 
is what he would do for himself if he could. 

Under such conditions, the child must interpret the be- 
havior of others as expressive of a subjective experience 
like his own. In merely affirming so much, however, we 
give an utterly inadequate statement of the nature of his 
social consciousness at this stage. As he finds and seeks 
and learns to count on social cooperation, he not only 
becomes aware of others as having perceptions, ideas, and 
interests like his own ; he becomes aware of them as perceiv- 
ing, thinking about, and interested in the things which he 
himself perceives, thinks about, and is interested in. Fur- 
ther, he becomes aware of them as cognizant of and inter- 
ested in himself. He becomes aware of them as concerning 
themselves with his own wants and requirements, and 
cooperating with him for their satisfaction. Only so far 



GROWTH OF INTERSUBJECTIVE INTERCOURSE 1 73 

as he thus learns to interpret the behavior of his social 
environment, will he be able to adapt himself to it, and 
utilize it in the furtherance of his own aims and purposes. 
Thus the primitive tendency to regard external things as 
having an inner being which is the counterpart of our own 
subjective life, finds in social intercourse a unique field for 
its development. With this development of social con- 
sciousness a most important group of interests grows up 
and progressively increases in range and complexity. The 
child becomes more and more interested in the interest 
which others take in himself, how they feel toward him, 
what they think of him, and so on.. He looks constantly 
to his social environment for sympathetic appreciation and 
sympathetic cooperation ; he fears and shuns disapproval 
and opposition from it. Besides this, he becomes more 
and more interested in the psychical life of others and 
their social relations without any special reference to him- 
self or to his own private ends. 

Intersubjective intercourse can only exist in a rudimen- 
tary stage before the growth of imitation and of language 
as the vehicle of ideal construction and ideal communica- 
tion. After what has been said in the last chapter only 
brief reference is required to the exceedingly important 
part played by language. The child can follow up his 
own trains of ideas only by help of ideas suggested to him 
through the words of others, and it is only by expressing 
his own thoughts in language that he can elicit from them 
the required expression of theirs. Thus he is always virtu- 
ally or expressly asking questions and getting answers. 
The answers are not of his own making ; yet they are 
answers to his own questions. They can only be regarded 
by him as coming from another mind which is not only 
thinking of the same things he himself is thinking of, but is 



174 THE WORLD AND THE SELF 

also thinking of his thoughts concerning these things. At 
first his part in this interchange of ideas is mainly passive. 
But he soon begins to give as well as take. He answers 
questions as well as asks them, imparts instruction, sug- 
gests lines of action, explains difficulties, etc. He thus 
becomes increasingly aware of others as dependent on 
him for the development of their trains of thought, just as 
he is dependent on others. 

As regards imitation, the main point to be noted is that we 
cannot know what it feels like to perform an action except 
in so far as we have performed more or less similar actions 
ourselves. Thus in imitating what others do we obtain the 
means of interpreting their outward behavior as expressive 
of their inner experience in the way of cognition, feeling, 
and emotion. A child sees his nurse throw a ball and at- 
tempts to do the same thing himself. So far as he is success- 
ful he has lived through the experience connected with the 
act imitated. Hence, when he again perceives his nurse 
throwing a ball, her outward behavior has for him a new 
significance. He knows what his nurse feels like in throw- 
ing a ball, because he has thrown a ball himself. From 
the close of the first year imitation plays a progressively 
larger part in the activity of the child, until a stage is 
reached in which it pervades almost his whole behavior. 
Nearly all childish plays bear this character. A little boy 
will push a chair before him as a puff- puff, at the same 
time puff-puffing himself. He will mimic his father smok- 
ing a pipe, or the movements of his mother playing a 
piano. He will use a playmate as a substitute for a horse, 
and provide substitutes for whip and reins. He will 
array tin soldiers against each other for battle. The little 
girl will dress and undress her doll, feed it, scold it, slap it, 
fondle, put it to bed, soothe it to sleep, take it out in a 



GROWTH OF INTERSUBJECTIVE INTERCOURSE 1 75 

perambulator, and so on. Such imitative activity enables 
children to enter into and appropriate the experiences of 
others. A little girl, for example, in fondling or scolding 
her doll comes to know what it is like to scold or fondle, as 
she already knows what it is like to be scolded or fondled. 
It is not easy to overestimate the importance of imita- 
tion as a method by which the individual gains relatively 
definite and vivid insight into what goes on in the minds of 
others. But we must never forget that it is only one phase 
or aspect of a very complex process. Imitation is in the 
main only significant because of its intimate union with 
social cooperation in thinking, willing, and acting. Cooper- 
ation is essentially different from mere imitation. When 
A socially cooperates with B, it is by no means necessary 
that A shall do or attempt to do what B is doing. On the 
contrary, in the more typical and important cases, A does 
or attempts to do something different from what B is do- 
ing. He acts in a way which is complementary to the 
act of B. He plays not a similar role, but a corresponding 
role. Now the imitation of children, where it is most 
important for mental development, has a certain dramatic 
character. The child in imitating enacts a distinctive part, 
and presupposes that others are enacting correspondingly 
distinctive parts in the whole constituted by a certain social 
situation. Sometimes the part assigned to others is merely 
that of interested spectators, who are expected to encourage 
and applaud, or, it may be, to disapprove or forbid. But 
in most cases more definite cooperation is required. When 
a baby begins alternately to cover and uncover his own 
face as he has seen his nurse or mother cover and uncover 
hers in the game of peep-bo, his behavior is so far 
merely imitative. But he is not content with this. He 
also expects the mother or nurse to make appropriate 



176 THE WORLD AND THE SELF 

noises, and to look duly surprised and pleased at the 
right points. Thus, in this novel way of playing peep-bo, 
he obtains a new insight into the inner experience of 
others, not merely as being like his own, but as the neces- 
sary complement of his own — as connected with his own 
in an inseparable unity. It is significant that children 
in imitating show a strong tendency to interchange roles 
with their elders — to do to others what has been pre- 
viously done to them, to become relatively active in situa- 
tions where they have in the past been relatively passive. 
To begin with, it is the nurse who picks up what the child 
drops or throws down. But as he becomes able to run 
about and to pick things up himself, he begins to find 
pleasure in fetching and carrying for others. He will 
bring back the ball to the nurse in order that she may 
throw it again. At the dinner table he will hand or carry 
forks, spoons, apples, and biscuits to his father and mother. 
In playing with such toys as stuffed animals or tin soldiers, 
he will assume an attitude of authority, controlling their 
actions, approving and scolding, and commanding and for- 
bidding, and in general subjecting them to his will as he 
himself is subjected to the will of his elders. He be- 
haves in the same way toward children younger than 
himself. In this his social consciousness receives new 
developments which it could not otherwise acquire. He 
comes more and more to represent the mental life of others 
as depending on his own as well as his on theirs. 

In the more complex and developed dramatic play of 
children, the dramatis personae are not, as a rule, actually 
present. They are represented by a process of ideal con- 
struction, assisted and sustained by what R. L. Stevenson 
calls " lay figures " and " stage properties." The doll is a 
centre of reference, which permanently supports the ideal 



INTERSUBJECTIVE INTERCOURSE I 77 

representation of the life history of a baby, and at the same 
time supplies that concreteness and vividness which is want- 
ing in the mere idea. The girl, in playing with the doll, 
treats it ideally, and so far as possible, actually as if it were a 
baby. She imaginatively places it in varying social situa- 
tions relatively to herself, and invests it with appropriate 
emotions, wants, perceptions, and modes of behavior, and 
represents herself as feeling and acting toward it in cor- 
responding ways. Evidently this free ideal construction 
of social situations must greatly help to enlarge and deepen 
social insight. The materials for it are primarily derived 
from the child's own social experience. But in the con- 
structive process he or she acquires a mastery over these 
materials in the way of conceptual analysis and synthesis 
such as could not easily be otherwise attained. Later on 
the raw material of ideal construction is partly derived 
from books and similar sources. So far as this is the case, 
the playful drama gives concrete vividness and detail to 
ideas which would otherwise be relatively vague and 
schematic. 

Intersubjective Intercourse and Self-consciousness. — The 

development of social consciousness is inseparably one with 
the development of self-consciousness. The individual's in- 
terpretation of the behavior of others is ultimately based on 
his own subjective experience. Hence, in dealing with them 
he is continually led ideally to analyze and reconstruct his 
own mental life. Besides this, in every typical social situation 
he is aware of others in relation to himself and of himself 
in relation to others. The conception of self so formed 
essentially includes relation to other selves. It is a con- 
ception of the part played by the self in the cooperative 
union which constitutes society. In thinking of ourselves 

N 



I78 THE WORLD AND THE SELF 

we think of the attitude of others toward us and of our 
attitude toward them, of what we and they think of each 
other, expect of each other, feel toward each other, etc. 
Ask any man who he is and he will reply by describing 
his social position, by referring to his profession, the 
family to which he belongs, and any deeds or intentions of 
his which have a social significance. It is in society that 
we live and move and breathe and have our being. If we 
disregard all qualifications of the self which presuppose 
social relations, it is not too much to say that all that con- 
stitutes distinctively human self-consciousness disappears. 

As the social situation varies, self-consciousness under- 
goes corresponding transformations. When we are com- 
manding, instructing, or advising, we are aware of ourselves 
as relatively superior, as initiating, continuing, and develop- 
ing trains of ideas and actions in the minds of others. 
When we are receiving commands, instruction, or advice, 
we are aware of ourselves as relatively inferior, as having 
our thoughts and actions determined by the thoughts and 
actions of others. It is a different self we are conscious 
of when we are giving protection or consolation and when 
we are protected or consoled. It is different in the family 
circle and in the office. It is different according as we are 
dealing with friends or enemies. The boy's self-conscious- 
ness varies according as he is playing with his big 
brother or his little brother. 

The function of imitation in the development of self- 
consciousness is exceedingly important, especially in its 
earlier stages. While the imitative endeavor is as yet un- 
fulfilled, the experiences connected with the action to be 
imitated are as yet beyond the reach of the imitator. They 
are for him something relatively vague and mysterious. 
The conception of himself includes a contrast between what 



INTERSUBJECTIVE INTERCOURSE I 79 

he actually is and does and what he is trying to be or do ; 
and this contrast is one between himself and the person to 
be imitated. So far as the imitative endeavor becomes 
successful, the situation is changed in a twofold way. By 
the same process the individual acquires the power of 
entering into sympathetic communion with another self, 
and also in the same act develops and enriches his own 
self-consciousness. A young child sees his mother throw 
a ball, and he says, " Baby frow ball." The ball is given to 
him, and in his fashion he throws it. He again says, " Baby 
frow ball." But now the words have for him a new sig- 
nificance. " Baby " is a triumphant baby, able to throw balls. 
He next carries the ball back to his mother and says, 
" Mamma frow ball." His mother's throwing the ball has 
now a new interest and significance for him because 
through his own experience he has come to know better 
what she feels like when she throws it. 

We must however remember that imitation is mainly 
important in connection with social cooperation. The 
child's consciousness of a triumphant self is largely rela- 
tive to the sympathetic interest which it seeks and obtains, 
or perhaps fails to obtain, from its mother. In this respect 
those imitations have a peculiar importance in which chil- 
dren interchange the parts previously played by themselves 
and others, becoming relatively active where they had been 
relatively passive. In this way the child contemplates its 
own mental life reflected in that of another self, as it may 
see its own body reflected in a mirror. From the end of 
the second year, or even earlier, children imitatively assume 
attitudes of authority toward such toys as dolls or stuffed 
animals. The doll is put to bed and obliged to go to sleep. 
If it does not go to sleep there are disapproving guttural 
noises imitated from the nurse. Later on the naughty 



l8o THE WORLD AND THE SELF 

doll is put in a corner as punishment. In fact, the little 
girl treats her doll just as she has been treated herself by 
those exercising authority over her, and represents it as 
behaving much as she herself behaves in like circumstances. 
Thus in imaginatively investing it with a life history she 
ideally represents her own life history, so to speak, ex- 
ternalized and transferred to another self. She becomes 
conscious of herself in another. On the other hand, in 
enacting the role of nurse or mother toward this counter- 
part of herself, she becomes self-conscious in a different 
way. She becomes conscious of herself as one exercising 
sway and authority. 

Intersubjective Intercourse and the External World. — 

The development of intersubjective intercourse not only 
involves a progressive enlargement and transformation of 
self-consciousness. The same process is in another aspect 
a progressive enlargement and transformation of the con- 
sciousness of the external world. 

We saw that on the perceptual level variations in sense- 
experience which merely arise in connection with the 
changing states and positions of the percipient organism, 
tend to be referred to the embodied self rather than to the 
external thing in which it is interested. This distinction 
becomes more precisely defined with the growth of inter- 
subjective intercourse. The way in which this takes place 
is easy to understand. Two persons, A and B, are in 
presence of the same external object, O. B examines O 
from various points of view, walking round it, toward it, 
and away from it. Again, he turns his eyes from it, or 
turns his back on it, or gets behind something which 
intercepts his view of it. Perhaps he puts on a pair of 
spectacles, or looks at it through a piece of colored glass. 



INTERSUBJECTIVE INTERCOURSE l8l 

All these movements of B's body are observed by A, and 
A knows through the analogy of his own case and through 
the words and behavior of B that they involve a series 
of changes in B's experience in relation to O. Yet A can 
detect no corresponding variations in O itself. Similarly, 
if B goes away altogether, O remains unaltered. The 
changes in B's experience of O must come to be regarded 
by A as not involving changes in O, but only in its appear- 
ance to B, including the case of its complete disappearance. 
In this manner there arises a sharp distinction between 
what depends merely on the varying conditions of the per- 
ceptual process and of cognitive process in general and 
what belongs to the nature of the external thing as an 
independent reality. If we look at the moon through 
a telescope after looking at it with the naked eye, we 
do not suppose that the change in the visible appearance 
is a change in the moon itself. The moon does not really 
become larger or acquire new features. On the other 
hand, the details discernible through the telescope and 
undiscernible with the naked eye are regarded as really 
belonging to the moon. The reason of this is that the 
differences discerned appear under uniform conditions of 
perception. The conditions of perception being the same 
cannot account for the differences in what is perceived. If 
the same telescope is turned upon other objects, other fea- 
tures are discernible. Should it happen that similar details 
are recognizable, whatever the object observed, we examine 
the instrument to see if it is dirty, or to find some other 
condition affecting it and not the things viewed through it 
The distinction between what is observed and its appear- 
ance to the observer tends to be represented after the 
analogy of a material thing and its reflection in a mirror, 
or of an original and the copy of it. The self, as we have 



1 82 THE WORLD AND THE SELF 

shown, comes to be regarded as forming a continuous unity 
with the bodily organism. Hence there arises a tendency 
to confuse presence to consciousness with local presence in- 
side the body. Now when a man sees a stick raised to 
strike him and runs away in consequence, evidently the 
stick itself is not inside him. On the contrary the stick itself 
is seen to be outside him. What is supposed to be inside 
him as the immediate object of his perception is a picture, 
or image, or vicarious representation of the stick. The 
same view is still more strongly suggested when something 
beyond the range of perception is present merely " in 
idea." This analogy of reflection in a mirror, or of 
original and copy, is fundamentally vicious, involving the 
literal application of a mere metaphor. It has passed 
from popular thinking into the writings of philosophers, 
producing endless confusion in the theory of knowledge. 

The point on which we have so far dwelt is the effect of 
intersubjective intercourse in determining the distinction 
between what is merely due to the varying conditions of 
cognitive process and what belongs to the nature of the 
external object. But there is another and an immensely 
important way in which social communion yields a test of 
what is physically real as distinguished from mere appear- 
ance. That and that only comes to be regarded as exter- 
nally real which is equally perceptible to all members of 
society under like conditions. The external world is the 
essential medium of social cooperation. Different minds 
are enabled to unite in conjoint activity for the fulfilment 
of a common purpose only in so far as each recognizes 
that the others perceive and think of the same objects 
as himself. Hence the more extensive and effective inter- 
subjective intercourse becomes, the more pervasive and 
fixed is the view of external reality as something to which 



INTERSUBJECTIVE INTERCOURSE 1 83 

all minds have access in common. Thus, the individual 
member of society habitually thinks of the externally real 
as that which exists or would exist under like conditions 
for others as well as for himself. What does not exist for 
others as well as himself, under like conditions of per- 
ception, he generally regards as mere appearance, as fancy, 
illusion, or hallucination. Failure to recognize this test is 
usually a symptom of insanity, disqualifying the individual 
from fulfilling his part in the social order. I see what 
I take to be a man, but others looking in the same direc- 
tion do not see anything at all. I infer either that the 
visual appearance is mere hallucination or at any rate that 
it is not connected with the presence of an actual external 
object such as I supposed. If I persist in saying that 
there is really a man there, my friends will send for a 
doctor and are likely to end by shutting me up in a lunatic 
asylum. This reference to other selves pervades our 
whole attitude to the external world. When it is not 
expressly formulated it is always lurking in the background 
of consciousness as a latent assumption or presupposition. 
"We are walking, let us say, in a village street, looking 
idly about from stone heap to passing carriage, gaunt 
telegraph pole, and gabled house. We are not conscious 
of any person, yet we vaguely realize that this is a shared, 
a common, a public experience, not a private one, that the 
other people, actually or conceivably present, are [or 
might be] seeing the same sights, house and carriage and 
stone heap." 1 If any part of the scene specially interests 
us, we may begin to talk to a by-stander about it, assuming 
that he has perceived it or can perceive it as well as we ; 
and we do this without being aware that we are making 
an assumption at all. 

1 "Introduction to Psychology," by Mrs. Calkins, p. 172. 



184 THE WORLD AND THE SELF 

Finally., the development of cooperative thinking and 
willing gradually gives rise in the history of the race to 
the mechanical view of nature displacing the primitive 
anthropomorphism which tends to attribute psychical life 
more or less determinately like our own to all external 
things interesting enough to attract special attention. This 
transformation is due in the first place to an increasingly 
sharp and impressive contrast between inanimate and ani- 
mate things. Bodies which behave in such a manner as to 
make possible social cooperation, become more and more 
distinctly marked off from those which do not adapt them- 
selves to the social order. A widening and deepening 
knowledge of the material world does nothing to verify the 
anthropomorphic point of view, which endows rocks, trees, 
streams, cataracts, etc., with a mental life like the human, 
and capable of being similarly influenced. On the con- 
trary, growing acquaintance with human conditions on the 
one hand and external nature on the other shows more and 
more clearly that such things are in no sense in social 
relation to us, and that to treat them as if they were so, is 
practically futile and misleading. It is, above all, progress 
in the industrial arts which brings about this changed view 
of the external world. As man's control over his physical 
environment increases, he comes more and more to regard 
material things not as having an independent psychical life 
of their own, but rather as means and instruments for the ful- 
filment of human purposes. He comes to regard them as 
relatively passive tools. The clay cannot say to the potter, 
Why hast thou made me thus ? The old anthropomor- 
phism decays, and as it decays it becomes displaced by a 
new anthropomorphism which is fitted to stand the test of 
experience. Material things still in a sense appear as mani- 
festations or vehicles of psychical life, but this psychical 



INTERSUBJECTIVE INTERCOURSE 1 85 

life is that of the human beings who adapt them to fulfil 
human ends in the cooperative union of society. A rail- 
way train is an expression of thought and will, but the 
thought and will expressed in it are the thought and will of 
its inventors and makers, of the capitalists who invest in it, 
and of the public who use it. This is the way in which we 
regard it whenever we consult a Bradshaw or take a ticket 
at a railway station. To understand the full importance of 
this point of view we must try to realize in how thorough- 
going a way civilized society has mastered its material 
environment and reshaped it for the satisfaction of its own 
needs. Wherever we turn our eyes, we are constantly con- 
fronted with external embodiments of human will and intel- 
ligence. We must go to the wild moorland or the lonely 
mountain side to find mere nature, and even there we do 
not quite succeed. 

In all this rearrangement and remoulding of the external 
world, so far as it is efficient, primitive anthropomorphism 
yields no help except accidentally. All depends on dis- 
covering certain rules or laws of interaction which have 
no reference to an inner psychical life in material things. 
The point of view which proves efficient in the long run is 
the mechanical. In order to succeed, man must concen- 
trate attention on those modes of behavior of external 
things which make machinery possible. 

This view of external nature arises first in connection with 
practical contrivances as embodied in tools, utensils, weap- 
ons, machines, and similar arrangements. But as it becomes 
more and more predominant in human thought it receives 
another application. It is applied theoretically in order to 
interpret and explain natural processes as they take place 
independently of human action. The tendency is to regard 
the external world in general as if it were a mechanism 



1 86 THE WORLD AND THE SELF 

analogous in its working to mechanisms of human con- 
struction. Modern science has achieved its successes 
mainly on these lines. It has made a strenuous effort to 
interpret even vital processes purely from the mechanical 
point of view. ^ 

What we have said about primitive anthropomorphism 
and its decay refers to the history of the race. In the case 
of children also there is discernible at a certain stage of 
their development an anthropomorphic tendency compara- 
ble to that which is common among savages. But the 
civilized child is from the outset placed in a social environ- 
ment which discourages and suppresses such modes of 
thought. Hence they last only for a comparatively brief 
period, and in some instances their presence is hardly in 
evidence at all. A little girl of three or four years may 
cry when she sees a flower plucked because she represents 
it as feeling pain. Childish grief over a broken toy has 
often an anthropomorphic element. But some children 
seem scarcely to pass through the stage at all. They find 
everybody around them acting and speaking as if plants 
and inanimate things do not feel what happens to them. 
Hence they rapidly learn to regard them in the same way. 

In conclusion, it is necessary to guard against a miscon- 
ception. We have described the decay of the uncritical 
anthropomorphism of the savage and of young children. 
But it must not be supposed that the projection of the self, 
which is a primary condition of our apprehending the ex- 
ternally real at all, ever entirely disappears, at least from 
ordinary thinking. On the contrary, it is implied in a 
modified and attenuated form, whenever we speak of things 
as exerting force or offering resistance, as pushing, pulling, 
or pressing, as in states of strain or tension, or as acting and 
being acted on. It is implied in our ordinary conception 



INTERSUBJECTIVE INTERCOURSE 187 

of things as actually existing and persisting with a unity 
and identity of their own independently of the vicissitudes 
of our sense-experience. It is a question for Metaphysics 
whether this subjective element is capable of being elimi- 
nated, and whether it ought ultimately to be eliminated 
from our view of the external world. The present writer 
thinks not. To get rid absolutely of what is due to the 
projection of the self would be to kill the goose that lays 
the golden eggs. 



CHAPTER XV 

EMOTION 

In preceding chapters we have mainly considered the 
development of cognition. We have indeed never lost 
sight of the concrete unity of mental life as involving an 
inseparable connection of conation, feeling-attitude, and 
intellection. None the less our treatment has been one- 
sided. For we have referred to interest mainly as a factor 
in the processes of perceptual adaptation and ideal con- 
struction. We have not expressly discussed the way in 
which the various forms of interest themselves become 
differentiated and organized. It is now time to take up 
this problem. We have in what follows to deal with the 
same concrete process of development which has hitherto 
occupied us. But we have to deal with it from a different 
point of view. We have now to regard the growth and 
differentiation of cognitive apprehension merely as a factor 
in the growth and differentiation of conation and feeling- 
attitude, instead of regarding interest as merely a condition 
of the development of cognition. Our first step will be to 
consider the special emotions and the conditions under 
which we become capable of feeling them. For it is the 
endless diversity of emotional states which gives its variety 
to our subjective life, playing in it a part analogous to that 
played by sense-presentation in cognitive process. 

General Nature of the Emotions. — Every distinctive type 
of emotion has its own peculiar quality which is incapable 



GENERAL NATURE OF THE EMOTIONS 1 89 

of being further analyzed. In order to know what anger 
is we must feel anger ourselves, just as we can only know 
what the sensations of red or blue are by ourselves experi- 
encing them. This does not imply that emotions are abso- 
lutely simple states which do not at all admit of analytic 
description. It implies only that they can never be re- 
solved without remainder into a combination of more* 
elementary constituents, otherwise known outside this com- 
bination. An emotion may include within its unity a com- 
plex of emotional states as its components. But it can 
never be simply equated to these ingredients which enter 
its composition. It includes them, but it is not simply 
identical with them. Jealousy may include in intimate 
union anger, wounded vanity, grief, tender reproach, and 
a variety of other emotional ingredients otherwise known 
than in this combination. But all these taken together do 
not of themselves make up the peculiar experience of being 
jealous. They no more do so than the taste of sugar and 
the taste of coffee make up the peculiar taste of sweetened 
coffee. The blend in both cases has a distinctive quality 
of its own. The first general character of the various 
kinds of emotion which we have to note is that how- 
ever composite they may be they each contain as 
unifying centre of the complex a unique and irreductible 
element. 

In the next place, it must never be forgotten that emo- 
tions are subjective attitudes toward an object. To be 
angry is to be angry with something or somebody, to be 
grieved is to be grieved over something, to fear is to 
fear something, to be joyful is to rejoice concerning 
something. The object may be vague and indeterminate. 
But there is always a tendency to specialize it. The 
emotion tends to define itself by fastening on determinate 



1 90 EMOTION 

objects. A person in a bad temper will find special occa- 
sions for feeling cross, angry, or fretful in occurrences 
which would not have affected him at all or would have 
affected him agreeably in a more complacent mood. Joy, 
however it may arise in the first instance, involves a pre- 
disposition to be pleased with things which would otherwise 
have left us indifferent or perhaps annoyed us. The jeal- 
ous person finds food for his jealousy in all kinds of cir- 
cumstances which would not have excited such an emotion 
had it not previously existed. To be in a hopeful mood is 
to look on the bright side of things, and to be in a despond- 
ent mood is to look on the dark side of things. The same 
emotion may in this way transfer itself successively from 
one object to another. The servant who resents being 
scolded by her mistress is apt to vent her ill humor on her 
own subordinates. We are often cross with one person, A, 
simply because we have been vexed by another, B. 

Finally, the typical varieties of emotion are each con- 
nected with certain characteristic directions of conation — 
trends of activity. Anger involves a tendency to destroy 
and forcibly to break down opposition. The angry man is 
one who would like to kick somebody or something. Joy 
involves what we may called expansive activity. It brings 
a heightened zest for such movements of attention and 
modes of behavior as are not intrinsically painful and 
do not involve strain and effort. Thus it is characterized 
by a playful attitude. Attention is spontaneous rather 
than voluntary. It is not persistently concentrated in a 
restricted channel so as to attain some ultimate end. On 
the contrary, it plays round objects which are directly 
agreeable, leaving them as soon as they cease to be attrac- 
tive. External behavior shows comparatively little prac- 
tical adjustment. Movement in general is quick and 



GENERAL NATURE OF THE EMOTIONS I9I 

vigorous. Laughter, clapping of hands, jumping up and 
down, singing and whistling are characteristic expressions. 
There is a tendency to social demonstrativeness and gen- 
erosity. A man in joyful mood may go out of his way to 
give sixpence to a beggar, who could not have extracted a 
penny from him had be been sorry or angry. 

Anger and joy have been called "sthenic emotions" 1 
because they are accompanied by a general heightening of 
activity — in the case of anger, activity against opposition, 
in the case of joy, relatively free and unimpeded activity. 
Grief and fear, on the other hand, are asthenic. In them, 
bodily and mental action is on the whole abated or re- 
pressed. In grief there is a tendency to dwell with monot- 
onous persistence on its own appropriate objects, loss and 
misfortune. Activity in other directions becomes relatively 
enfeebled and costs more or less effort. We speak of a 
person being plunged in grief and of attempting to rouse 
him from it. In grief there is general depression and dis- 
turbance of the vital functions, accompanied by cries, com- 
plaints, and movements which give relief by drawing off 
nervous energy, instead of specific motor attitudes in the 
way of practical adjustment to surrounding conditions. 
This absence of practical adjustment is connected with the 
nature of the object of the emotion, which is in general a 
loss or misfortune regarded as beyond remedy. It is spilt 
milk over which we cry. Fear, on the contrary, arises in 
a situation which demands action for averting, evading, or 
escaping a loss or misfortune which has not yet taken 
place. But, at the same time, the situation is of such a 
nature as to disable and disconcert either by its strange- 
ness or by the threat of approaching evil. In extreme 
cases all activity is paralyzed except that of absorbed 

1 From adtvos, strength. 



I92 EMOTION 

attention to the object feared. This is what is called the 
fascination of fear. In general, however, there is practical 
adjustment in the way of flight or hiding and the like, and 
perhaps even in the way of active opposition. But the 
emotion of fear in proportion to its intensity impairs the 
efficiency of the actions which it prompts, and so destroys 
"presence of mind." It is the intrepid person who is best 
able to face danger. 

Emotion and Organic Sensation. James's Theory. — It 
is a well-known fact of ordinary experience that emotions, 
at least when they pass a certain degree of intensity, are 
accompanied by characteristic bodily changes, in part obvi- 
ous to the external spectator, in part taking place in the 
internal organs. There is a play of facial gesture, varying 
tension and relaxation of the muscles, increase or abate- 
ment of the secretions, changes in respiration, heart-beat, 
and circulation of the blood. These variations in the state 
of the body give rise to corresponding varieties of organic 
sensations, which in their turn form ingredients in the 
emotional experience. The nervous excitement correlated 
with emotion plays on the organism in general as on a 
sounding-board, and is in its turn modified by this organic 
resonance. 

Experimental research has traced with some fullness 
and exactness the nature of the changes in the internal 
organs connected with the special emotions, and has shown 
that such changes take place even when there is no mani- 
festation of them obvious to the looker-on. Such facts as 
these have suggested to certain psychologists, among whom 
Professor James is most prominent, a theory according to 
which emotion simply consists in organic and kinesthetic 
sensations. On this view, the nervous excitement imme- 



EMOTION AND ORGANIC SENSATION 1 93 

diately connected with the receipt of good or bad news is 
not correlated with any emotion of joy or grief. The emo- 
tion arises by a kind of back-stroke. The primary nervous 
excitement must first overflow through efferent nerves, pro- 
ducing changes in the internal organs which in their turn 
give rise to organic sensations. It is the organic sensa- 
tions thus produced which constitute the emotion. This 
is James's theory. 

The theory is open to obvious objections which seem to 
justify a refusal to accept it in the absence of very strong 
and unequivocal evidence in its favor. In the first place, 
it seems to leave no room for a psychical change correlated 
with the primary nervous excitement which by its overflow 
gives rise to the diffused organic disturbance. The shock 
of bad news stops the beating of my heart. It seems incon- 
sistent with the general principles of psychophysical paral- 
lelism to suppose that this shock is unfelt before the bodily 
changes occur which result from it. But if it is felt, how 
can it be felt otherwise than as an emotion ? How can its 
intensity be anything but emotional intensity ? Further, 
it is very hard to assign any characters sufficient to mark 
off the organic sensations which are supposed to constitute 
emotion from others. Hunger, thirst, headache, the dif- 
fused discomfort of a fever or a cold, are not emotions. 
What, then, is the distinctive peculiarity of the organic 
changes which produce emotional consciousness ? The 
theory offers no adequate explanation. Even those or- 
ganic sensations which admittedly enter into and color a 
total emotional state are apprehended merely as sense- 
presentation when they are separately attended to. Cold 
shivers and warm tinglings are recognized as cold shivers 
and warm tinglings, not as feeling-attitudes of the subject 
toward an object. It would seem that organic sensations 



194 EMOTION 

assume an emotional character only by being fused with 
an emotion which must be supposed to have a relatively 
independent existence. In the third place, the results of 
the most recent and exact experimental research seem dis- 
tinctly unfavorable to the theory. The connection between 
the various types of emotion and distinctive bodily changes 
turns out to be neither so simple nor so uniform as the 
theory requires. 

In favor of the theory an appeal is made to a sort of 
introspective experiment. It is alleged that if we abstract 
resolutely from concomitant organic changes and the con- 
nected sensations, we find that the emotion itself disap- 
pears from our view. There seems to be nothing left 
which we can call an emotion. This statement may, per- 
haps, be reasonably doubted. But even if we admit its 
truth, it does not prove what it is intended to prove. It 
may be essential to an emotion that it should find expres- 
sion. It may be that we cannot suppose the expression to 
be absent and at the same time suppose the emotion to con- 
tinue in existence. But it by no means follows that the 
emotion is to be simply identified with what we call its 
expression and the resulting organic sensation. Empha- 
sis is also laid on our power to control emotion by sup- 
pressing its external manifestations. This is undoubtedly 
possible to a certain extent. But the fact can be easily 
accounted for without assuming the theory. We may 
directly suppress or " damp down " the emotional excite- 
ment by denying it its appropriate outlet. Further, the 
man who is attempting to refrain from the external mani- 
festations of emotion has already some control over it. 
He is no longer merely its slave; his mind is already influ- 
enced by other motives which tend to check it. Finally, 
in the effort to modify his external behavior, his attention 



EMOTIONS AS PRIMARY AND DERIVATIVE 1 95 

and his nervous energy are diverted into new channels, and 
in this way the emotional excitement is abated. 

We cannot then accept James's theory. And we may 
now add that even if we did accept it, its significance 
would be more physiological than psychological. It would 
not really mean that emotion is a kind of sensation. It 
would only mean that emotions are conditioned in their 
occurrence as sensations are conditioned, i.e. by excita- 
tion travelling along afferent nerves. An emotion is a 
feeling-attitude of the subject toward an object ; a sen- 
sation is nothing of the kind. This distinction cannot 
be affected by any theory of the mode in which emotions 
are produced. From the inner point of view of the sub- 
ject who experiences emotion, it remains radically differ- 
ent from sensory presentation, whether James's theory be 
true or false. But it is precisely this inner point of view 
which is important to the psychologist in contrast to the 
physiologist. 

Emotions as Primary and Derivative. — When our ca- 
pacity for feeling an emotion depends on our having previ- 
ously felt other emotions, or at least on our having acquired 
the capacity of feeling them, the emotion may be called 
derivative. The other emotions on which it depends are 
relatively primary. The pity which a man feels for the 
grief or for the impotent anger of another may be such 
as he could not feel if he had not gone through analogous 
experiences himself. To this extent his emotion of pity is 
derivative. It is based on his own previous emotions of 
grief or impotent anger. This does not necessarily imply 
that the previous emotions are sympathetically reawakened 
in himself when he pities the person who is now feeling 
them. They may be so reawakened in a greater or less 



I96 EMOTION 

degree. But such ingredients may also be absent or hardly 
discernible in his emotion of pity. All that is necessary 
is that his previous emotions of grief or impotent anger 
should have left behind them mental dispositions capable 
of modifying his emotional experience in the future and in 
particular rendering him susceptible of a certain kind of 
pity which he could not otherwise have felt. 

The word " derivative," then, does not necessarily imply 
complexity. It does not necessarily imply that the rela- 
tively primary types of emotion enter as ingredients into 
the composition of the emotion which presupposes them 
as its conditions. For the most part the primary emotions 
do recur, often very faintly and obscurely, in the derivative 
emotion. But it would lead to needless difficulties to sup- 
pose that this is always the case. 

Anger, fear, grief, joy, and surprise, in their rudimentary 
forms, seem to be absolutely primary. They do not pre- 
suppose other emotional experiences as their conditions or 
components. On the other hand, admiration, gratitude, 
remorse, and wounded vanity are examples of derivative 
emotions. 

There is evidently a wide field for psychological work 
in tracing the genetic connection of derivative emotions 
with those which are relatively primary. Unfortunately, 
however, little of importance has been actually accom- 
plished in this direction. The earlier psychologists mainly 
content themselves with attempts to define, classify, and 
describe various types of emotion as if they were so many 
specimens in a museum. This line of treatment is utterly 
inadequate to do justice to the fluency of our emotional 
life, to the mode in which " the internal shadings of emo- 
tional feeling merge endlessly into each other." 1 To 

1 James's " Principles of Psychology," Vol. II, p. 448. 



EMOTIONS AS. PRIMARY AND DERIVATIVE 1 97 

quote Professor James, " The merely descriptive literature 
of the emotions is one of the most tedious parts of psy- 
chology. ... I should as lief read verbal descriptions of 
the shapes of the rocks on a New Hampshire farm. 
They give nowhere a central point of view or a deductive 
or generative principle." x In consequence of dissatisfac- 
tion with work of this kind, more modern writers tend to 
deal very perfunctorily with the psychology of the emotions 
and substitute for this a discussion of their physiological 
concomitants and conditions. Better prospects, however, 
are opened out if we resolutely attack the problem from a 
genetic point of view, showing in a systematic way how 
derivative are based upon relatively primary phases of 
emotion. 

Within the limits of this book we can do no more than 
give a specimen of the sort of work which may be done 
along these lines. Such a specimen is contained in the 
ensuing chapter on " Tender Emotions," not written by my- 
self, but by Mr. A. F. Shand, who has devoted himself to 
this and allied problems. 

1 James's " Principles of Psychology," Vol. II, p. 448. 



CHAPTER XVI 

THE SOURCES OF TENDER EMOTION 
By Alexander F. Shand 

A Psychological Method for dealing with the Emotions. 

— While of late the chief progress in our knowledge of 
the emotions has been confined to their physiological 
effects and conditions, leading psychologists to emphasize 
the organic and other sensations that enter into them, it 
has seemed to me that there is another and supplementary 
method of treating them which is psychological, yet not 
barren of results like the definitions of individual emotions 
which Professor James deprecates. These, he remarks, 
are often based on artificial distinctions, and their accuracy 
is a pretence ; for, excepting a few of the primary emo- 
tions, the rest have not a sufficient stability of thought and 
feeling to lend themselves to scientific definition. The feel- 
ings that enter into them are in a state of flux, both in 
respect of their strength and composition. They do not 
remain the same while we apply the same name to them. 
They elude our definitions. 

Now recognizing this fact as we all do, what is the 
conclusion we are to draw from it ? We might suppose 
that no scientific treatment of the emotions is possible 
other than the study of their sensations in relation to 
physiological conditions. But there is another and more 
hopeful alternative. Adapt yourself to this flux of emotion. 
Make full use of it. Do not vainly attempt to dam it up 



TENDER EMOTION AND SYMPATHY 1 99 

with statical definitions. Study its cross currents and com- 
bining eddies, and ask yourself whither they are tending. 
For the emotions have complex tendencies. They have 
their own impulses, even the most quiescent. By their ends 
you may know them. By their ends you may trace their 
presence in the most unstable combinations where their feel- 
ing cannot be detected. Leave their feelings to their nat- 
ural vagueness ; define them by their ends. By this method 
alone or supplemented, we may be able to trace the intri- 
cate course of emotional development, and if our hope be 
not unsubstantial, enunciate genuine laws of its fusions 
and conflicts. 

But let us not contend over the abstract statement of 
this method, but judge it by its results. Then apply it to 
the chief varieties of Tender Emotion, and if by it we are 
able to detect the sources of that which has seemed to 
psychologists both simple and primary, it will not be 
altogether valueless. 

Tender Emotion and Sympathy. — Tender Emotion is 
often confused with sympathy, and love with both. And 
even when separately treated (as by Bain in consecutive 
chapters), the relation between them is far from clear. 
To the ordinary man love, sympathy, and tender feeling 
are the same, or suggest no important differences, and in 
Bain's account love is tender emotion. He has a chapter 
for the second, but none for the first. He speaks of " the 
warm, tender emotion, the reality of love and affection." 1 
He refers to the gregarious situation as the source of "what- 
ever is meant by love, affection, tender regard." 2 In one 
of the most original chapters of the " Psychologie des 

1 "The Emotions and the Will," 4th ed„ Ch. VII, p. 124. 

2 Ibid. 



200 THE SOURCES OF TENDER EMOTION 

Sentiments " of Professor Ribot, that on " Sympathy and 
Tender Emotion," we find a clear account of their difference. 
He distinguishes between two stages of sympathy. The 
first is pure or unmixed, but it is not tender, as when in 
cheerful society we feel cheerful, and with silent, gloomy 
people, depressed. The second stage of sympathy is 
marked by the appearance of a new element — " tender 
emotion (benevolence, sympathy, pity, etc.). It is no longer 
sympathy, pure and simple, it is a binary compound." * 
This is sympathy "in the restricted and popular use of 
the word " ; 2 — which, it may be remarked, is also Bain's, 
who defines it as " to enter into the feelings of another 
being, and to act out these for behoof of that other, as 
if they were our own" 3 — a definition which makes his 
separate treatment of sympathy and tender emotion per- 
plexing, and seems to reduce us to the common opinion of 
their identity with one another and, the sexual passion 
excepted, with love. Yet Bain also cursorily noticed 4 the 
same distinction which is prominent in the theory of Pro- 
fessor Ribot, and even signalized this chief problem, How 
we come to attach the sympathetic emotion " to another 
personality " so as to work out its promptings in his 
behalf. 5 But he did not apparently suspect the presence 
of a second emotion, transforming it to tenderness, and 
constituting it sympathy in the popular sense of the word. 
On the other side, Professor Ribot has not drawn attention 
to those cases where pure sympathy is tender, as when the 
pity of a man for some one in misfortune evokes 
sympathetic pity from others. For where the original 
emotion is tender, so must be the sympathetic emotion 

1 "The Emotions and the Will," Part II, Ch. IV, i, p. 233, Eng. Trans. 
(Contemporary Science Series). 2 Ibid. 

3 Op. cit., Ch. VI, p. 1 1 1. * Ibid., p. 1 12. 5 Ibid. 



PITY 20I 

which reflects it, but where it is not, pure sympathy cannot 
make it tender. In war we are apt to sympathize with 
revengeful feelings against the enemy. The fierce ex- 
pression of one man that he hopes no mercy will be shown 
them may arouse the same revengeful spirit in another. 

So much by way of introduction, and as Professor 
Ribot, though he has conclusively shown that pure sym- 
pathy is not essentially tender and disinterested, has not 
dealt with the problem on its converse side, I shall here 
return to it, inquiring first how far tender emotion is itself 
sympathetic, how it acquires its disinterested attitude, and 
last, what is the source of this tender emotion which Pro- 
fessor Ribot has pronounced to be " simple and primary," 1 
and Bain to be " one of the first, if not the first, of human 
emotions." 2 

Sympathy is not confined to any variety of feeling, and 
we may take the word to mean either the way in which a 
duplicate emotion is aroused in us, namely, by the ex- 
pression of its original in the looks, words, or gestures of 
another person ; or we may take the word to mean the bare 
fact of the coincidence and identical character of two or 
more emotions belonging to different minds ; and the first, 
as the more complex meaning of the word, includes the 
second. But we employ both in ordinary use. Those who 
listen to a great speaker are in sympathy with him, because 
the expression of his emotions arouses similar emotions 
in them. They are in sympathy with one another, because 
their coincident emotions have an identical character. 

Pity and the Fundamental Impulses of Sorrow. — Pity 
is regarded as a sympathetic emotion ; but its tender- 
ness cannot be resolved into sympathy. A man may 

1 Op. cit. Part II, Ch. IV, ii, p. 236. 2 Op. cit., Ch. VIII, p. 124. 



202 THE SOURCES OF TENDER EMOTION 

suffer in anger and bitterness : a woman, in her pity for 
him, may feel neither. What is sympathetic in her feel- 
ing ? Her emotion is tender, his is hard ; hers is sorrow- 
ful, his is angry. Her sympathy is confined to suffering 
at the sight of his suffering. Both feel painful emotions ; 
but there is no further identity between them. Her sym- 
pathy is an inadequate measure of her pity. Her very 
complete pity is a very incomplete sympathy. Were her 
sympathy complete, it would be hard, not tender. By its 
departure from sympathy it becomes tender. 

In all cases of pure sympathy, where the reflected emo- 
tion is not modified by new constituents, we behave as if 
this emotion had been excited in us in the ordinary way — 
as if it had been immediately aroused and not reflected. 
When we feel sympathetic anger we are disposed to in- 
flict injury or pain, just as if the quarrel were on our 
own account. When our pity is caught from our more 
pitiful neighbor, we are disposed to relieve suffering, as 
if the sight of it had directly moved us. And as when 
we rejoice in anything we tend to maintain ourselves in 
presence of it, so when we are infected with a sympa- 
thetic joy through the good spirits of our companion, 
we remain in his society, or leave it with reluctance. And 
as when anything displeases us, we are disposed to avoid 
it, so when we are depressed by a melancholy man, we 
are disposed to avoid him. But when we pity him, we 
act quite differently. Instead of avoiding, we remain 
with him ; instead of neglecting him, we wish to be of 
service. The sympathetic gloom that we feel reflected 
from him is not tender : our pity, which is not sympa- 
thetic — which is not a reflection of his feelings — is. 
Does this new and tender emotion account for so great 
a change in our feeling and attitude ? Does it not only 



PITY 203 

overcome the preceding impulses of avoidance and neg- 
lect, but substitute new and opposite impulses of attrac- 
tion and service ? Yes, it appears to do so, and to be, in 
the words of Bain, an exception to the " regular outgoings 
of the will in favor of our pleasures ! " But he offers no 
other explanation of so startling a fact, except to refer to 
the gregarious situation and the analogy of the fixed idea. 
And he is not quite satisfied with the explanation, and ac- 
cepts it provisionally, in place of a better. At least, it is 
not because our feeling is sympathetic that it manifests 
this tender feeling and exceptional conduct, but because 
it is pity. What then is Pity ? Can we analyze it ? Can 
we at least class it and so determine whether its impulse 
is as exceptional as it seems ? Yes, we can at least class 
it, and its impulse is not as exceptional as it seems. Pity 
is a kind of sorrow, gentle, not violent. Thence it de- 
rives its impulse. For all sorrow that has risen above the 
blind stage and found an object tends to maintain the 
presence of its object, and in absence to think of it. And 
in absence, moreover, it tends to pursue this object in 
order to be again united to it. Because sorrow, though a 
painful emotion, clings to instead of forsaking its object. 
Hamlet throws himself into the grave of Ophelia, not 
to be separated from her. And even when we grieve, 
not for persons, but for the loss of wealth, position, or 
power, we persistently think of the object, and main- 
tain it in thought instead of excluding it. Nor when 
we do exclude it, is the motive of exclusion ever the genu- 
ine impulse of sorrow, but due to our reflection and self- 
control. And this difference we can easily discriminate. 
Of what use, we say, is vain sorrow ? The impulse of pity 
is the same ; and if pity is exceptional, then so is all 
sorrow. But the theory which is accepted, as a matter of 



204 THE SOURCES OF TENDER EMOTION 

course, that all painful feelings have an impulse to avoid 
their objects, is too wide. It may hold of all painful sen- 
sations, but it does not hold of all painful emotions. 
Sorrow and anger contradict it. And sorrow, as a pri- 
mary emotion, has its own complex striving. It is not the 
same as that of other painful emotions. Anger strives 
to injure or pain its object; Fear to hide or flee from it; 
Disgust to avoid or reject it; but Sorrow just to cling 
to it. 

Sorrow has a second characteristic impulse, which may 
be repressed, but is never extinguished. Where its object 
is injured or defective, it strives to restore or improve it. 
And this impulse goes out not only to persons, but things 
— to broken glass, to holes and rents and stains, to every- 
thing we value, and whose defacement we regret. 

Yet see how this impulse of sorrow is sometimes re- 
pressed. For Despondency is a quiet sorrow, not given 
to tears and sobs ; and as it loses sight of the possibilities 
of improving its object, — this piece of work that I would 
make excellent, this fortune that I would make great, this 
position that I would make secure, — so is this impulse of 
improvement weakened. But still in thought it clings to its 
object, and in solitude broods over its ill-success. Melan- 
choly is like it, but prone to be more persistent. It has a 
pleasant element, some say, because it evokes the pleas- 
ant scenes of the past. But it discerns no possibility of 
bettering its object, of restoring life to that happy state 
which was once anticipated, or once enjoyed. Hence the 
repression of its impulse ; yet still, and throughout all, it 
clings in thought to its object, and often in imagination 
reveals the impulse which is denied an outlet in the world 
of reality. It reconstitutes life from cherished illusions, 
and " molds it nearer to the heart's desire." 



PITY 205 

And the last of this group of emotions of a pervading 
common feeling and common impulse is Despair. And 
despair is a desperate sorrow. Again and again has its 
restorative impulse been repressed. There is no outlet left 
and its inward battling is vain. Hence its extreme an- 
guish. Yet were the dead to discover the faintest signs 
of life, how would sorrow cease to be despair, and mani- 
fest its restoring impulse. 

It is because pity is a kind of sorrow, not because it is 
sympathy, that it clings to instead of abandoning its object. 
It is because pity is a kind of sorrow, not because it is 
sympathy, that it prompts us to relieve suffering and re- 
store the injured. It is because pity is that kind of sor- 
row felt not for self, but for others, not because it is 
sympathy, that it is essentially disinterested. Sympathy 
cannot interpret the peculiarities of any emotions nor 
of their characteristic conduct. It is a mere echo, re- 
flection, or copy. Pity is ordinarily complicated with 
some degree of sympathy, and like any other emotion, like 
anger, fear, or disgust, may be sympathetically aroused ; 
but it is essentially independent, and there are cases of 
pity into which sympathy can hardly enter. We pity the 
dead whose emotions we have no cognizance of. Poor 
corpse, we say, because its life is extinguished. But 
should we pity the dead less, if we knew they were in- 
capable of delight or suffering ? There would be in 
their vanished existence nothing with which to sympa- 
thize, but how much to pity. 

Nor can the good man sympathize with the vices and 
debauchery of the wicked man. They excite his abhor- 
rence. But he may easily pity him. He pities him be- 
cause he has lost sight of his higher nature and true 
happiness. He regards his state as most miserable, and 



206 THE SOURCES OF TENDER EMOTION 

tries to convince the wicked man of a misery which the 
latter does not feel. His pity is tender, but it is not sym- 
pathy. That which arouses it is the ruin of the man's 
character. This excites his disinterested sorrow. 

Reproach. — Reproach is often a tender emotion. It is 
a mingled sorrow and indignation. We reproach those 
whom we love for unkindness, cruelty, or injustice; but 
we do not easily sympathize with the feelings which have 
prompted their conduct, not though the depth of love and 
tenderness restrain anger. " Beautiful regards were turned 
on me — - the face of her I loved ; the wife and mother, 
pitifully fixing tender reproaches, insupportable ! " For 
there is an accusation in reproach, though one that does 
not invoke punishment, but repentance. And here also 
the universal impulse of sorrow for the restoration of its 
object is disclosed. As it is disclosed in our common pity 
in the impulse to relieve suffering, so it is disclosed in 
reproach in the silent call to repentance. 

The character of Reproach becomes clearer when we 
contrast it with Denunciation. There, too, is an accusa- 
tion. But it is willingly adopted, not grievously torn from 
its subject. Denunciation has no tender feelings, because 
it is grounded in anger, not in sorrow. Reproach is 
grounded in sorrow ; and anger, so far as it enters in, is 
restrained. It is not permitted to invoke vengeance. The 
impulse of sorrow is in the ascendant, which strives not 
for the injury, but the restoration of its object. 

Gratitude. — Gratitude is a tender joy, as Pity a tender 
sorrow. But all joy is not tender. That referred "to 
services to be received" is without it, and so is the child's 
joy in a new gift when it includes no inward feeling of 



GRATITUDE 207 

thanks to the giver. For the joy at first centres in the 
gift or service, but in the grateful heart acquires a 
new reference to its benefactor, and now transformed 
to tenderness, centres in him. But what changes the 
reference ; what transforms it ; what new emotion is 
evoked ? 

Joy is a diffusive emotion. It transcends its proper ob- 
ject. When good fortune favors us, we rejoice more than 
we should otherwise do in the presence of friends and 
acquaintances. The very earth is pleasant to us, and 
familiar things illuminated. Among surrounding objects, 
no one so much impresses us and engages our attention as 
that which is the cause of our good fortune. If it has 
come to us through the instrumentality of another, though 
without intention on his part, he is included in our joy, and 
we desire him to share our profit, — how much more when 
it is due to his good will. Thus the diffusiveness of joy, 
and its natural passage from effect to cause, explains how 
we come to rejoice in the presence of our benefactor. 
And we do not merely rejoice in his presence, but in his 
state of mind toward us. For that is the veritable cause. 
To his kindness we owe our advantage. To that our joy 
mounting from effect to cause refers itself. 

But what changes the feeling as thought passes from 
benefit to benefactor? Why is the joy of the ungrateful 
heart without tenderness, and the grateful suffused with 
it ? Gratitude has its tears ; has it also a sorrow hidden in 
its joy? It seems that when we rejoice in the thought of 
another's kindness, we at the same time are sorry for the 
pains it has occasioned him, and the loss of time and 
money. Is this explanation fanciful ? At least it inter- 
prets some cases. The parable of the widow's mite touches 
us because she gave all that she had. We compassionate 



208 THE SOURCES OF TENDER EMOTION 

her poverty ; but the rich man's ostentatious gift which 
leaves him still rich, and costs him no painful effort, for 
him we feel no compassion and no gratitude. In propor- 
tion as we realize that the service rendered us has cost our 
benefactor much in trouble, time, or money, we are both 
sorry for the cost to him, and our gratitude is increased ; 
but in proportion as we realize that it has cost him little, 
sorrow on his account is diminished as well as gratitude. 
Thus the rich often complain of the ingratitude of the 
world. The sight of their ease and luxury blinds it to 
their secret troubles. Their gifts seem to involve no 
sacrifices, and their great feasts and houses full of guests 
provoke no gratitude from those that enjoy them. 

Thus the idea of " cost " plays an important part in 
arousing the emotion of gratitude, and this we might infer 
from the conventional language which politeness requires 
us to adopt when even the smallest service is rendered to 
us. We protest that we are sorry for the trouble we have 
occasioned, and render our thanks. 

But there is one thing that arouses gratitude when the 
cost of the service is inappreciable. There are little gifts 
and services which cost nothing, yet for which we are 
grateful because they seem to express love. We are 
grateful for love. A service that is unwillingly rendered 
or is meant to humiliate us, or is accompanied by a patron- 
izing air, for that we feel no gratitude. When we see the 
evidence of kind feeling, our heart at once responds. A 
small service with love moves us more than a great one 
without it. But if the cost is little, where is the occasion 
of sorrow, how comes it that we feel gratitude ? Is it not 
obvious that where love is, there is this disposition to make 
sacrifices ? Our thought is not confined to the present, 
but feels vaguely future possibilities. And if with our joy 



GRATITUDE 209 

in a gift we are apt to feel some sorrow for its actual cost 
to the giver, shall we not in the gift of love be apt to feel 
more in the thought of the indefinite cost to which it 
exposes itself ? And this too explains how any descrip- 
tion from real life or literature of noble character at once 
arouses in us a tender admiration. For such a one is 
ready to give what he can ill afford to lose, and in his 
exertions for others to forget his own interests ; and the 
sorrow that we feel, making tender our admiration, is 
enhanced when we reflect on the common destiny of such 
characters, how ungratefully they are used and neglected. 

But there is evidence to show that where we cannot de- 
tect the actual feeling of sorrow, its characteristic impulse 
is present. The operative ideas of cost and sacrifice may 
not reinstate the emotion, but they reexcite its disposition 
and transform joy to tenderness. 1 For as there is no emo- 
tion of gratitude without these ideas or their equivalents, so 
there is no gratitude without the impulse to recompense its 
benefactor — to restore to him what he has lost. This is 
the same universal impulse of sorrow for the restoration of 
its object, changed, but still substantially the same by the 
ideas of cost and recompense. 

And what part does sympathy play in gratitude ? As 
sympathy is a mere echo and can originate neither the 
feeling nor impulse of pity, so it cannot interpret gratitude. 
And as sympathy is in most cases mixed with pity, and pre- 
pares the way for it by making known to us the feelings 
of another, so is it mixed with gratitude. But there is a 
difference between them. The feelings of the sufferer are 
not often tender. We pity him for failures, disappoint- 
ments, and misfortunes that often leave him embittered and 
sullen, but not often engrossed in self-pity nor, except in his 

1 I here apply D. Stout's theory of disposition. 



2IO THE SOURCES OF TENDER EMOTION 

grief for those dear to him, feeling a tender emotion that 
he can impart to us through sympathy. But it is different 
in gratitude. Both he who does and he who receives a 
kindness are apt to feel a tender emotion, rendering possi- 
ble an exchange of it. And this exchange of feeling 
through sympathy plays here an important part, both in- 
tensifying gratitude in the one and benevolence in the 
other. But unless there were on one side or on the other 
some original spring of tender emotion, there would be none 
for sympathy to reflect. 

Benevolence. — As there is in Gratitude a double source 
of its tender emotion, which is both original and sympa- 
thetic, so is it often in Benevolence. The kindly man some- 
times feels pity for the suffering he is about to relieve, 
sometimes in imagination reflects the grateful thanks of the 
recipient. But at other times, as in doing small services, 
he can hardly feel the one, and may not anticipate the 
other. Still in his own sentiment is a perennial source of 
tender feeling. There are those who miss it in their good 
deeds because they are done from a cold sense of duty, not 
from love, and without imagination of the happiness and 
gratitude they may provoke. But benevolence, like all love, 
though it may feel no immediate pity, where the situation 
does not evoke it, has a horizon wider than its present 
action ; and just as one who recognizes love behind its 
least services feels vaguely the sacrifices which it is dis- 
posed to make, so he who does the smallest service from 
love feels vaguely the greater needs to which he would 
willingly respond. And as on the one side gratitude is 
aroused with the sorrow at these possible sacrifices, so on 
the other, tender emotion with the sorrow at these possible 
misfortunes. 



ASPIRATION, TRUST, RESIGNATION 211 

The hypothesis advanced in the preceding pages inter- 
prets not only the varieties of painful feeling that are ten- 
der, but also the corresponding varieties of pleasurable 
feeling to which it seems at first sight ill-adapted. To 
some actual or potential admixture of sorrow is due the 
tenderness of gratitude and benevolence, as well as of pity 
and reproach. But it is still more significant to watch the 
working under new conditions and in new emotional states 
of the universal impulse of sorrow to restore the loss or 
injury of its object. To that is due the impulse of Pity to 
relieve suffering, the invocation to repentance of Reproach 
and the desire of Gratitude to recompense its benefactor. 

Aspiration, Trust, Resignation, Reverence, Repentance. 

— We can easily detect, through their feeling or impulse, 
the action of sorrow in the remaining tender emotions. 
The upward gaze of Aspiration is dimmed with the sorrows 
of sin and failure. The disposition to sorrow of clinging 
Trust is stirred by the sense of weakness. Reserve and 
secrecy, the supports of our proud independence, are sur- 
rendered. To some extent we are in the power of another, 
and feel dimly the evils he could inflict on us. But the sor- 
row at weakness is absorbed in the joy of trust ; and the joy 
of our security grows tender. And so, while there is one 
kind of Resignation which is the calm attitude of courage 
facing the inevitable, trust enters into the weaker and 
affords it a tender consolation. 

In Trust and Resignation tender feeling is not universally 
present, but Reverence and Repentance cannot be without 
it. In the second, sorrow is prominent ; in the first, dis- 
guised or potential as in gratitude. We can distinguish two 
constituent emotions in reverence, fear and admiration, 
evoked by the greatness and mystery of its object. We 



212 THE SOURCES OF TENDER EMOTION 

feel their opposite impulses ; for while admiration draws us 
into the presence of the object and holds us there, fear 
would keep us at a distance. And fear still restrains us 
from all familiarity. But what distinguishes reverence from 
awe, which is also evoked by the greatness and mystery of 
its object ? In awe there is both admiration and fear, and the 
same opposition of impulses. The precipice and the ocean 
arouse awe. We are drawn to and yet away from them. 
But the complex emotion changes to simple fear when we 
are too close to their manifest dangers. Yet awe is differ- 
ent from reverence. It is not a tender emotion. For not 
greatness and mystery alone evoke reverence, but only in 
union with goodness. And goodness is apt to inspire pity 
when we think of the common fate that attends it. It 
seems a distinct diminution to the power of the object, 
exposing it to attacks which it otherwise would know well 
how to guard against. The love of others makes it lay 
aside its power to subdue and despise them, and betrays it 
into their unscrupulous hands. Hence reverence, recogniz- 
ing the goodness and love in this great and mysterious 
character, tends to feel some tinge of sorrow in contem- 
plating it, and is impelled to a great devotion, because 
its humble efforts are needed. And here the impulse 
of sorrow to restore its object imaginatively precedes mis- 
fortunes and forestalls them. This is the original source 
of the tender feeling of reverence, but other emotions are 
blended in it which increase its tenderness. Its sympathy 
is tender, because the feelings of its great object are tender 
to us, and its disposition to benefit us inspires a responsive 
gratitude. 

Thus to the ineradicable impulse of sorrow to restore the 
presence or well-being of its object is due the devotion of 
reverence, the resolution of repentance to amend its life, and 



LOVE 2 I 3 

the yearning of aspiration after a perfect state. In trust and 
resignation, the impulse is counteracted, as it is in despond- 
ency and melancholy, by the hopelessness of the situation. 
In the one you have irrevocably disclosed your secrets and 
hidden weakness, and can never regain the strength which 
comes of secrecy ; in the other, you cannot remedy your 
weakness. You have to face the inevitable, and be re- 
signed to it, if possible, with trust, but still resigned to it. 

Love. — According to the common opinion, love is a tender 
emotion. Thus Bain in his comprehensive work has no chap- 
ter on love, but what he has to say about it is placed in his 
chapter on " Tender Emotion." x But no emotion can sum 
up love, nor can it be contained in any single pulse of con- 
sciousness. Love is always an emotional system. 2 Nor 
does tenderness always belong to this system. It is absent 
from the love of power. The exalted love of knowledge, 
apart from admixture of other sentiments, has no place 
for it. The sensualist's love is antagonistic to it. But it 
appears so frequently in our affections as almost to epito- 
mize them. Not only are the joys of human love tender, 
but its sorrows of bereavement after the first bitterness has 
passed. Tenderness mixes with its hopes, anxieties, and 
fears, with its retrospective as well as prospective emotions. 
And if there are some bitter sorrows that refuse to be soft- 
ened, while anger makes them hard, yet tender emotion 
almost sums up the character of this love, and is our near- 
est approach to it in any single state of consciousness. 

But why is love so frequently affected with tenderness ? — 

1 "The Emotions and the Will," Ch. VII. 

2 I assume this in the text; for the evidence of the theory see " Character 
and the Emotions," Mind, N.S., Vol. V, pp. 217-219; also G. F. Stout's 
" Manual of Psychology," Bk. IV, Ch. IX, § 5. 



214 THE SOURCES OF TENDER EMOTION 

for it appears where we should least expect it. Can sym- 
pathy account for its presence and disinterestedness ? The 
mother sympathizes with the joys of her child, yet often at 
their manifestation feels a tender yearning. His boyish 
enthusiasm in his battles with tin soldiers arouses a sympa- 
thetic joy in her, but cannot explain its tenderness. Little 
does the boy feel this tenderness of the mother ; little does 
she understand the meaning of it. For nothing stands out 
in her mind to account for a feeling of sorrow. It is not a 
moment of parting foreshadowing the pains of absence. 
Before her simply is the spectacle of childish joy; and yet 
her sympathy is so unlike it as to feel tender. It is be- 
cause love enfolds its object as a whole, and is not like emo- 
tion confined to some phase of it. With this extended 
prospect, and steeped in its reflections, some ill-defined sad- 
ness must often mingle with its present joy. The aura of 
the sentiment encloses its present emotion ; and in the aura 
of love is tenderness and sorrow. 

Tenderness as a Complex and Derived Emotion. — Tender 
emotion is the name of a class of many varieties. It is not 
like fear or anger. We think of them as individual emo- 
tions, and though they represent classes, the differences 
of their members are comparatively unimportant. But the 
varieties of tender emotion present a marked individuality 
of their own, such as pity, gratitude, reproach, reverence, 
trust, repentance. Thus we cannot think of it as an indi- 
vidual, but as the common character of a class. And if it 
is, as it is supposed to be, simple and primary, as well as 
one of the first of our emotions in the order of time, it is 
not as any one of its varieties which are all complex, but 
as some constituent emotion which enters into all of 
them. 



TENDERNESS AS A COMPLEX AND DERIVED EMOTION 215 

Of all the tender emotions, pity appears the simplest. 
Gratitude, reverence, aspiration, reproach, repentance, 
pathos, are emotions blended of two or more varieties. 
Yet is pity all sorrow, and is sorrow alone the source of its 
tenderness ? Is all sorrow tender ? Is the infant's " mul- 
ing and puking in its mother's arms " ? Is the boy's at the 
loss of a pocket-knife, or ours at the breaking of a costly 
vase ? Is there tenderness in the bitter regret we feel at 
the loss of wealth, position, or power ? There are hard as 
well as tender sorrows. 

It has often been remarked that there is sweetness in 
pity ; but no wholly painful emotion can account for it. 
If we try to imagine a pity that is all painful sorrow, it will 
be neither sweet nor tender. Such is often that which we 
feel at the irreparable misfortunes of others. We shrink 
from offering them the traditional consolations which 
sound so hollow. We feel that we can do nothing. " How 
horrible," we say. If we could show love in little acts that 
would not seem an intrusion, sorrow would be sweetened. 
For the tenderness of pity seems to come from the ideas 
and impulses that go out to relieve suffering. But if they 
are repulsed, if there is no use for them, now or in the 
future, and time must be left to effect everything, the 
tenderness of pity is resolved into one of its elements. We 
feel a degree of that horrible sorrow which the sufferer 
feels. But pity is often sweet and pleasant. The sentimen- 
talist dallies with it. There is for him a "luxury" in its 
sorrow. 

This pleasurable element in pity we can sometimes 
recognize as joy — joy in the thought of the good deeds 
that tend to reverse misfortunes, — and we are led to sus- 
pect that some subtle interaction of joy and sorrow may be 
the source of all tenderness. One may predominate, and 



2l6 THE SOURCES OF TENDER EMOTION 

the other may be present in a degree too small to appreci- 
ate, or while its disposition is reexcited and acts upon the 
predominant emotion, its feeling may not be reinstated in 
consciousness, 1 yet this may be sufficient to transform the 
result, for where we cannot detect the feeling, we can dis- 
criminate its impulse. Thus we have followed this method 
in treating of gratitude, where the feeling of sorrow may be 
inappreciable or absent, where joy stifles it, yet transformed 
to tenderness submits to its enduring effect. For all joy 
is not tender any more than all sorrow, as the joy of power 
over others, of revenge and malice. Nor v/ill it be made 
tender by the action of any painful ingredient, but only of 
sorrow. In the proud, humiliation mingles with the joy 
of a gift; in others, fear, as in the maiden, at the sacri- 
fices that might be required of her. The result of these 
fusions bears no resemblance to tender feeling. Both 
are ungrateful. • But, in gratitude, its essential impulse to 
recompense its benefactor is evidence that it is derived 
from neither anger, nor pride, nor fear, which have no 
such impulse, but only from sorrow. Nor could we any 
more derive this impulse from joy alone. Joy, like sorrow, 
tends to maintain the presence or thought of its object. 
But joy tends to maintain this object as it is, not to improve 
it. For where there is nothing present to arouse grief, 
there is no impulse to restore or improve. Therefore we 
can only derive this distinctive impulse of gratitude from 
the hidden influence of sorrow. 

Yet the joy in gratitude is essential to its tender feeling. 
We all know how we try to be grateful when we are given 
something that displeases us, or is quite useless. We think 
that it was kindly meant ; we may recognize that we ought 
to make a suitable return ; but we do not often experience 

1 Mr. Stout's theory of dispositions covers this case; see ante. 



TENDERNESS AS A COMPLEX AND DERIVED EMOTION 21 J 

tender feeling. And in those cases where we do, we can still 
detect the presence of joy, without which there is no 
emotion of gratitude. For a noble nature overlooks the 
want of imagination in the gift, and rejoices when it is a 
symbol of the gift of love. Thus in both pity and grati- 
tude, while the disinterested impulse comes from sorrow, 
both joy and sorrow must interact to produce the tender 
feeling. 

If we consider the remaining tender emotions, we shall 
find always in them some blending or interaction of joy and 
sorrow. Thus in reverence there is the joy of admiration, 
as well as its hidden sadness. In aspiration there is joy in 
the ideal and sorrow in the actual. In trust, the joy of 
protection and the sorrow at weakness. In repentance, joy 
in a new life unfolding and sorrow in the old life not yet 
dead. But in tender reproach we might suppose there were 
only sorrow. What source of joy can there be in con- 
templating the wrong, the cruelty, the ingratitude, or the 
forgetf ulness that arouses it ? But reproach is one of 
those emotions that are only developed in sentiments. 1 
Tender reproach is addressed to one whom we love. And 
whenever we love, there is an undercurrent of joy, the 
working of a hidden disposition growing out of many mem- 
ories, which, even when the experience of its object is over- 
whelmingly painful, is secretly flowing into it from the 
past. For he whom we love must have been a source of 
joy to us. He can never look like one to whom we are 
indifferent. There is a contrast present to the mind, and 
often vividly present, of what he was and is, and present 
sorrow and indignation interact with the disposition of 
former joy. Thus joy, sorrow, and anger are all active ; 
but while anger makes sorrow hard, joy blending with it 

1 See "Character and the Emotions," Mind, N.S., Vol. V, pp. 219-221. 



2l8 THE SOURCES OF TENDER EMOTION 

makes it tender. These are the opposing influences pres- 
ent; and hence it often happens that reproach is not a 
tender emotion, the influence of anger counteracts the dis- 
positions of joy and love. 

In most tender emotions joy or sorrow predominates, 
while the complementary feeling is sometimes inappreci- 
able. Thus we can trace the marked contrast between 
gratitude and pity to this, that in the one joy predominates, 
in the other, sorrow. For perception commonly arouses a 
stronger emotion than ideas. But in Pathos the two emo- 
tions are more evenly balanced, and we can see more 
clearly how their tender feeling is aroused. The aesthetic 
feeling for beauty is a species of joy which, mingling with 
sorrow, produces pathos. Thus, " our sweetest songs are 
those that tell of saddest thought." But if we have no 
sense of their beauty, they are apt to become depressing. 
A tragedy of Shakespeare contrasts with the domestic trag- 
edy of Ibsen because the beauty and grandeur of the one, 
the great personages that take part in it, the splendor of 
their surroundings, all tend to maintain joy and admiration 
and blend with our sorrow at their fate, while in the other 
the absence of beauty and the vulgar incidents afford no 
relief from sorrow. Eliminate the beauty and the joys of 
life and you have left a heavy depression without tender- 
ness. But whenever we take a comprehensive view of life, 
joy and sorrow tend to be revived together, even if sorrow 
predominates. We feel "the still, sad music of humanity." 
Even the common earth and sky recall both emotions, and 
the poet "looking over the happy autumn fields" feels 
the mystery of his own tears. And thus human love, 
because it takes this comprehensive view of its object, is 
so often tender. Commonplace as are the words by which 
it expresses itself as "dear" and "dearest," there are 



TENDERNESS AS A COMPLEX AND DERIVED EMOTION 2ig 

situations in which they are so charged with meaning that 
they seem to concentrate love in a moment. At meeting 
and parting what a tenderness is in them. For the joy 
of meeting has come to mix with the sorrows of absence, 
and the sorrow at parting is dissolving the last joy of 
being together. And so, whenever we use these words 
for the concentrated expression of love, they necessarily 
express tender emotion. How tender is the language of 
Shakespeare's patriotism, " This land of such dear souls, 
this dear, dear land." And when Shakespeare says, "Grief 
joys, joy grieves, on slender accident," he is but express- 
ing the common transition into one another of these oppo- 
site emotions, yet not so opposite as people think. For 
both share in a common striving, both tend to maintain 
their objects in perception or thought. Both, though op- 
posed in feeling, harmoniously unite. How much less 
stable is the union of joy and fear. There is something 
restless in this combination. We are drawn to and away 
from the object of reverence. The fear in awe must be 
subdued or it destroys the emotion ; on the verge of the 
precipice the sublime may dissolve in terror. 

Thus as we consider the evidence as a whole, it is against 
our concluding that Tender Emotion is simple and primary. 
Two emotions, at least, have preceded it. It is derived 
from them and their dispositions ; it is not primary. There 
are many varieties of joy and sorrow, and not all of them 
in their fusion may produce this emotion. But however 
this may be, like all products of mental development, like 
the production of the special sensations from a common 
sensibility, and of the fundamental types of thought from 
an undifferentiated awareness, and the types of will from a 
blind conation, tender emotion cannot be resolved into the 
components we can still trace in it. The result is not 



2 20 THE SOURCES OF TENDER EMOTION 

an arithmetical sum of its constituents. In the process 
of their interaction its distinctive quality is evolved. And 
so we have a class that we name Tender Emotion, the 
members of which, through all their marked distinctions, 
have this pervading common character. 



CHAPTER XVII 

THE SENTIMENTS 

Differentiation of Interest. — With the development of 
cognitive consciousness we become more and more fully 
and distinctly aware of what we want and of how to obtain 
it. The objects of conation become more complex and 
differentiated. This means that conation itself becomes 
more complex and differentiated. Interest progressively 
defines itself in cognition, and in defining itself transforms 
itself. In the process of satisfying one interest new results 
are experienced which give rise to new interests. A child 
delights in letting things fall on the ground. He does this 
with an elastic ball and the ball bounces. The bounce 
itself is impressive and pleasing. Hence in the future, 
the general interest in letting things fall becomes in the 
case of the ball a specific interest in making it bounce. 
Similarly, a person may read a book in the first instance 
merely for the purpose of passing an examination. But as 
he reads he may become directly interested in the subject- 
matter. This development of interest goes on more or less 
throughout life. 

The Genesis of Sentiments. — There is yet another and 
an immensely important mode in which previous interest 
generates new ones. An object which has been connected 
with agreeable or disagreeable activities, which has given 
rise to manifold emotions, which has been the source of 

221 



22 2 THE SENTIMENTS 

various satisfactions or dissatisfactions, becomes valued or 
the opposite in and for itself. It becomes liked or disliked, 
loved or hated, for its own sake. The child's interest in 
his mother is at first directly connected with her action 
in satisfying his needs and desires, in playing with him, 
and generally in cooperating in the development of his 
own psychical life. But in time he begins to love his 
mother. He concerns himself with what she does and 
what happens to her, apart from any reference to other 
preformed interests of his own which she may help or 
hinder. The thought of her being grieved directly grieves 
him. The thought of her being pleased directly pleases 
him. The belief or even the imagination of her being ill- 
treated makes him angry. Her mere absence makes him 
cry, and her return makes him rejoice. He could not be 
compensated for her loss by the substitution of some one 
else like her. In an analogous way he may come to attach 
value to inanimate objects, and especially to his toys. He 
may form a sort of affection for a tin soldier or stuffed 
rabbit. He may, for instance, take it to bed with him, and 
not be content unless he knows that it is under his pillow. 
When the toy is broken, it may not be by any means a 
sufficient consolation to give him another like it or superior 
to it. Doubtless young children tend to represent their 
playthings as having a psychical life somewhat analogous 
to their own, so that the object of their affection is not for 
them purely impersonal. But it is quite possible to attach 
a sentimental value to an inanimate object without personi- 
fying it, except perhaps in an exceedingly dim way. We 
may form an affection for an old and well-tried pipe, or for 
a well-worn volume which we have used for years. The 
finest meerschaum or the most beautifully bound copy of 
the same book will not do as a substitute. 



SENTIMENTS ARE DISPOSITIONS 223 

The child's love for his mother or his toy exemplifies what 
for want of a better name we may call a sentiment. 1 This 
word is very loosely used in ordinary language, and psy- 
chologists in general have failed to give it a meaning much 
more precise. There can therefore be no harm in apply- 
ing it as we propose. There is a link of connection between 
this application and the common use of the terms " senti- 
mental" and "sentimentality." A person is said to set a 
sentimental value on a thing when he values it out of pro- 
portion to any special advantages which are derivable from 
it. It is sentimental to prefer an old and tattered copy of 
a book to a new one better printed and better bound. 
Ruskin's objection to railways is said to be sentimental, 
because it does not seem to be founded on any actual harm 
which they do, and overlooks the great advantages con- 
nected with them. It is sentimental in Lydia Languish to 
prefer an elopement to an ordinary marriage. Now it is very 
far from true that all sentiments in our sense of the term 
are sentimental, but they all involve the valuing of an ob- 
ject for its own sake and not merely for advantages deriv- 
able from it. The popular usage has fastened especially 
on the particular cases in which the valued object appears 
not to be really valuable. 

Sentiments are Dispositions, not Actual Feelings. — A sen- 
timent, as we have defined it, cannot be actually felt at any 
one moment, as emotions can be felt. Its relation to emo- 
tions, conations, pleasures, and pain, as actually felt, is 
twofold. On the one hand it develops out of them. It 
is through the varied forms of agreeable interest felt by 
me from time to time when I have social intercourse with 

1 Proposed first by Mr. Shand. " Character and the Emotions," Mind, 
N.S., Vol. V. 



224 THE SENTIMENTS 

a man that I begin to entertain a sentiment of friend- 
ship toward him. On the other hand, sentiments, when 
they have once come into being, are themselves indepen- 
dent sources of manifold feeling-attitudes and conations, 
varying with varying circumstances. They are complex 
mental dispositions, and may, as divers occasions arise, give 
birth to the whole gamut of the emotions. " In the love 
of an object," says Mr. Shand, "there is pleasure in 
presence and desire in absence, hope or despondency in 
anticipation, fear in the expectation of its loss, injury, or 
destruction, surprise or astonishment in its unexpected 
changes, anger when the course of our interest is opposed 
or frustrated, elation when we triumph over obstacles, 
satisfaction or disappointment in attaining our desire, 
regret in the loss, injury, or destruction of the object, joy 
in its restoration or improvement, and admiration for its 
superior quality or excellence. And this series of emo- 
tions occurs now in one order, now in another, . . . when 
the appropriate conditions are present." 2 

With inversion of conditions these same emotions " re- 
peat themselves ... in the life history of every sentiment 
which we name dislike or hatred. There is pain instead 
of pleasure in the presence of the object, desire to be rid 
of it, to escape from its presence, except we can injure or 
lower its quality, . . . anger or fear when it is thrust upon 
us and persists, . . . regret or grief, not in its loss or in- 
jury, but in its presence and prosperous state." 2 

Development of Sentiments in Complexity and Abstract- 
ness. — Sentiments may be conveniently though very 
roughly classified as concrete or abstract. The concrete 
have as their objects, individuals, or groups of individuals 

1 Shand, "Character and the Emotions," Jlfind, N.S. , Vol. V. 2 Ibid. 



DEVELOPMENT OF SENTIMENTS 225 

united in some kind of whole. The child's love for his 
mother is concrete in this sense. Abstract sentiments, on 
the other hand, have for their objects some general feature 
of concrete experience. Love of power, of fame, of 
justice, of truth, come under this head. 

The first concrete sentiments are directed toward indi- 
viduals. The child begins by loving single persons, e.g. 
his nurse or mother. But as his experience widens and 
becomes more highly organized, a sentiment arises which 
has for its object the family as a social group, including all 
that is intimately associated with family life. This may be 
called the home sentiment. When it is strongly developed 
it lasts long after the home has been broken up. At school 
a special school sentiment is generated which may persist 
throughout life. A man of sixty or seventy may feel his 
heart warm at the sight of an old schoolfellow whom he 
cares little for, or even dislikes as an individual. At a later 
date, patriotism emerges ; and this may be more or less 
comprehensive. It may be what is called local patriotism, 
confined to the town or village or county in which a man 
is born or in which he lives. It may be love of his country 
in the narrower sense, eg. of Scotland in distinction from 
England or Ireland, or it may be some kind of imperial 
sentiment. 

Self-love which, when it passes certain bounds, is called 
selfishness, must be classed as a concrete sentiment having 
an individual for its object. It is connected with the con- 
ception of self as having private interests which may con- 
flict with the private interests of others. So far as man's 
interest in doing a service to the public would be equally 
gratified by seeing some other person perform it instead 
of himself, self-love is not involved. So far as his 
satisfaction depends on the service being done by himself 
Q 



2 26 THE SENTIMENTS 

and not by another, it depends on self-love. In general, 
self-love has, with certain modifications, all the characters 
of other forms of love. To love a person is to find satis- 
faction in his presence and dissatisfaction in his absence. 
Now a man is always locally present to himself, and there- 
fore this local presence can afford him no special gratifica- 
tion. But the pleasure which we take in the presence of 
a friend is mainly a pleasure in social communion with 
him and in vividly realizing all that his existence means 
for us. To this there is a counterpart in the case of self- 
love. Self-love is gratified by opportunities for attending to 
one's self so as vividly to realize one's own importance. 
It is gratified by talking about one's self or hearing one's 
self talked about, by finding others look to us for assistance 
and advice, and so forth. The pleasure some people take 
in seeing their own name in print or appending their name 
to a document is a typical instance of this gratification of 
self-love. On the other hand self-love is disagreeably 
thwarted when the tendency to attend to ourselves and 
realize our own importance is in any way repressed, e.g. 
when we want to talk of ourselves, and cannot get people 
to listen. In other respects the analogy between self-love 
and the love of another is very close. We feel fear in the 
expectation of loss or injury to the self, anger when the 
gratification of self-interest is opposed, elation when we 
triumph over obstacles in obtaining our own private advan- 
tage, regret when we suffer injury or loss, admiration for 
our own superior quality or excellence. 

Pride, vanity, love of power and distinction, and love of 
fame are one-sided developments of self-love, and as being 
one-sided ought rather to be classed among the abstract 
than the concrete sentiments. Each has for object a cer- 
tain general aspect of the life of the self. In pride what 



DEVELOPMENT OF SENTIMENTS 227 

is especially valued is the superiority, or at least the 
equality of the self in relation to others. The emotions of 
wounded pride are especially excited by being obliged to 
feel and recognize dependence on others, by being com- 
pelled to ask their advice, to follow their lead, or to 
borrow money from them. On the other hand, the emo- 
tions of gratified pride are especially excited when we 
have occasion to realize vividly our own self-sufficiency 
or the dependence of others on us. The distinctive mark 
of the proud man is that he takes pleasure in the in- 
dependence or the superiority which he supposes himself 
already to possess. His complacency is disturbed only 
when anything occurs to disturb his preconceived high 
opinion of himself and of his position and belongings. In 
this respect pride differs from the general love of power 
or distinction. The ambitious man may restlessly seek for 
power and distinction, and may stoop to flatter others and 
place himself under unrepaid obligations to them in order 
to gain his ends. But the merely proud man finds such 
behavior repugnant to him. 

He is stably content with his actual position and con- 
dition, and feels no promptings to enter into competition 
with others for distinction and power which he does not 
already possess. Vanity is distinguished from pride, in- 
asmuch as what it values is not merely superiorities or 
excellences of the self, but the express and emphatic recog- 
nition of these superiorities or excellences on the part of 
others. It thus involves a dependence on others which is 
repugnant to pure pride. The vain man boasts and brags ; 
he finds it necessary to make others admire and applaud 
him in order that he may enjoy what he supposes to be his 
own excellent qualities, achievements, or possessions. But 
the proud man, as such, does not boast. What he values is 



228 THE SENTIMENTS 

his own real excellence, and not the show of it. " When 
vanity is excited we always regard ourselves indirectly 
and from the outside, as we should appear to a spectator. 
Hence the looking-glass is the emblem and symbol of 
vanity." 1 

Among abstract sentiments not connected with self-love 
we may refer the hatred of injustice or oppression, devo- 
tion to the cause of science, or art, or religion, the love of 
economy, or order, or cleanliness, detestation of humbug, 
or of affectation, or of servility. Carlyle's hero-worship 
was in a large measure a valuing of the abstract attribute 
of strength or efficiency for its own sake ; on the other 
hand, weakness and inefficiency as such excited his con- 
tempt and disgust. To hate injustice is not merely to 
resent wrongs done to ourselves or our friends ; it is to re- 
sent wrongs wherever they may occur, even when they are 
done to our enemies, or to persons in whom we have other- 
wise no special interest. In one who feels this or analo- 
gous sentiments deeply and keenly, there is a tendency to 
personify the abstract quality. Consider, for example, the 
way in which Shelley and Byron wrote about Freedom, or 
Wordsworth about Duty. The lover of economy is shocked 
by seeing or hearing of wastefulness wherever it may be 
found, and even by the mere thought of it. The worship- 
per of riches feels a sentimental pleasure and admiration 
at the mere sight of a millionnaire, or of accumulated 
treasure. 

1 Shand, " Character and the Emotions," p. 221. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

VOLUNTARY DECISION 

Development of Will. — The term " Will " is sometimes 
used, in a very wide sense, for conation realizing itself. 
Sometimes it is used in a very restricted sense for voluntary 
decision, resolution, or choice. Such decision, resolution, or 
choice involves the presence of at least two conative tenden- 
cies, and a preference on the part of the self of one to the 
others. The resulting action is determined by this prefer- 
ence, and not merely by any one of the alternative ten- 
dencies between which a decision is made. It is only in 
reference to such intervention of the self in deciding be- 
tween alternative lines of conduct, that we can speak of 
the freedom of will. Voluntary decision is a relatively late 
product of mental development. On the purely perceptual 
level, action follows the immediate impulse arising out of 
the circumstances of the moment. It is prompted and 
guided by the perceived situation without any train of ideas 
representing the end pursued and the means of its attain- 
ment. At this stage there can be no voluntary decision, 
because there is no presiding self to make it. The self of 
perceptual consciousness is merely the self of the moment, 
just as its world is just the actual situation present for the 
time being to the senses. There may be hesitation between 
conflicting impulses, as when a dog is recalled from chasing 
a rabbit by his master's whistle. But the result is deter- 

229 



23O VOLUNTARY DECISION 

mined by a direct trial of strength between the competing 
tendencies, not by a voluntary decision preferring the one 
to the other. 

As the life of ideas develops desire takes the place of 
merely perceptual impulse. Conation, instead of issuing 
directly in bodily action or failing altogether to find an 
outlet, dwells on the idea of its end and the ideally repre- 
sented means of its attainment. Further, the object may 
be itself more or less a result of free ideal construction. 
We can not only " desire to live again through experiences 
of which there is nothing actually present to remind us " ; 1 
we can also desire what we have not previously experienced 
at all. With the progress of conceptual analysis and 
synthesis these ends become more complex, more remote 
from the present situation, and more generalized. Thus 
ends come to be pursued which demand the labor of a 
lifetime ; others again require the combined effort of many 
individuals, each making a relatively small contribution to 
the common cause. Often the desired object is one which 
cannot be fully realized within the lifetime of the agent. 

Another aspect of this process is the organization of cona- 
tive tendencies in a more or less unified system. Each 
separate end is pursued, not only for its own sake, but also 
as a step toward or away from other ends. It is regarded 
a part of a general plan of life. We eat not only because 
we have an appetite for food, but also because we cannot 
do other things, or live at all, without eating, A student 
reads a text-book not only because he is interested in the 
subject-matter, but because he desires to pass an examina- 
tion ; he desires to pass the examination not only because 
he wishes for evidence that he really knows something 
about the subject, but also because he desires a diploma ; 

1 Ward, article on psychology in the Encyc. Brit., p. 74. 



ACTIONS WHICH ARE INTENTIONAL 23 1 

this again is wanted as a step to entering on a profession ; 
the profession again is valued partly as a means of playing 
a respectable part in the general order of society, partly 
as a means of making money which shall enable him to 
marry. In this system some ends are relatively more com- 
prehensive and ultimate ; others more special and immedi- 
ate. To take one's place in the social order by becoming 
a doctor or lawyer is an end more ultimate and comprehen- 
sive than reading a text-book or passing an examination. 
It is through such organization of conative tendencies that 
the self comes to possess and to recognize its own perma- 
nent unity and identity in the various phases of its life 
history, past, present, and future, actual and possible. 
Only in so far as the self of the present moment is con- 
nected by such continuity of interest with the self of past 
moments, can it own the action of the past self, and feel 
responsible for them. Now it is especially for what is 
directly or indirectly due to his own voluntary decisions 
that a man feels responsible. This is because voluntary 
decision between alternative lines of conduct essentially 
involves an appeal to the self as a unified system of 
interest. 

Actions which are Intentional but not Due to Voluntary- 
Decision. — Action is intentional so far as we have ideal 
prevision of its course, the end to be attained, and its 
collateral consequences. All actions due to voluntary 
decision are intentional. But the inverse is not true. 
Routine conduct may be intentional without involving any 
decision or resolution. We intentionally eat at regular 
meal-times, and do the details of business in the accus- 
tomed order, taking at the accustomed times customary 
recreation. But all this may take place as a matter of 



232 VOLUNTARY DECISION 

course. We may never even vaguely raise the question 
whether we are to do these things or abstain from doing 
them. 

Even when there is a conflict of tendencies, intentional 
action does not necessarily presuppose a voluntary deter- 
mination. A man may be led by the interest of an exciting 
meeting to stay on at it, even though he feels that he 
ought to go home and go to bed. He stays on in spite of 
an opposing tendency which creates misgiving and dis- 
comfort. Yet he may never distinctly determine to stay 
instead of going. He simply drifts into his actual course 
of action. The conflict is a mere brute trial of strength 
between competing tendencies, not a comparison of ends 
resulting in a preference of one to the other. 

Self-consciousness as the Essential Factor in Voluntary- 
Decisions. — What is distinctive of voluntary decision 
is the intervention of self-consciousness as a cooperating 
factor. The effect of realizing this or that special conation 
is considered in its bearing on the general system of 
interests belonging to the constitution of the self as a 
permanent unity. If a conation is realized, the completed 
action becomes part of the life history of the agent. If in 
contemplating it beforehand the agent takes this into ac- 
count, if he asks himself whether he really wants this action 
to become his action and so to become included in his own 
conception of himself, he is on his way to the forming of a 
voluntary decision. The decision may follow immediately, 
or it may not take place until after a process of deliberation. 
Deliberation intervenes when more or less time is taken in 
mentally realizing from various points of view the bearing 
of the contemplated course of action on the unified system 
of interests of the self as a whole. Suppose, for instance, that 



MOTIVES AND THEIR FLUCTUATIONS 233 

I have to decide whether or not I shall become a candidate 
for a certain appointment. I mentally dwell on the trouble 
and unpleasantness connected with the competition and 
the likelihood that after all I may be rejected. I consider 
the nature and amount of work which I shall have to do, if 
I am appointed. The work may involve much uncon- 
genial drudgery, likely to interfere with cherished pursuits 
for which I feel myself to be better fitted. On the other 
hand, I have to take into account the attractions of an 
increased salary, a wider sphere of usefulness, and a more 
distinguished official position. I turn over these points in 
my mind in their connection with each other, endeavoring 
to appreciate their relative importance in the organized 
system of my life's interests. Finally, the process comes 
to a conclusion by transforming itself, perhaps more or 
less abruptly, into a settled determination either to apply 
for the post or not to do so. 

We may describe a typical process of deliberation as 
follows : A certain line of action being suggested, I ideally 
develop the conception of myself as I shall be if I carry it 
out so as to make it part of my actual life history, and 
on the other hand I ideally develop the conception of 
myself as I shall be if I refrain from acting in this way. 
I thus follow out the representation of a hypothetical self 
in more or less detail, until I have formed a decision, or, to 
use an expressive phrase of popular language, until I have 
made up my mind. 

Motives and their Fluctuations. — The term " motive " is 
ambiguous. It may refer to the various conations which 
come into play in the process of deliberation and tend to 
influence its result. Or it may refer to the conations 
which we mentally assign as the ground or reason of our 



234 VOLUNTARY DECISION 

decision when it has been fully formed. In other words, 
a motive may be either a motive for voluntary decision or 
a motive #/" voluntary decision. 

It is in the first sense that the term is used when delib- 
eration is described as a weighing of motives. This is a 
convenient metaphor, but very apt to mislead. When we 
weigh things, the presupposition is that they have already 
a fixed weight independently of the process of weighing 
them. The weighing is merely a way of ascertaining what 
this predetermined weight is. But the strength of motives 
is no such fixed quantity. It varies in and through the 
process of deliberation itself. When I first begin to con- 
sider whether I shall become a candidate for an appoint- 
ment, the prospect of an increased salary may influence me 
strongly. But as the process of making up my mind de- 
velops, this motive may come to weigh less and less with 
me. It may almost cease to be a motive at all. 

This holds good of the peculiar dominance which motives 
acquire when they cease to be merely motives for deciding, 
and become motives of a decision already formed. It is 
untrue to say that the motives of the decision were the 
stronger from the outset, so that the decision merely 
acknowledges a preexisting fact. On the contrary, it is 
in the decision itself and the process of deliberation which 
leads to it, that the motives which are the ground of it gain 
the strength which enables them to determine conduct. 

What is a Voluntary Decision ? — So far we have dealt 
only with the conditions under which a voluntary deter- 
mination emerges. We have yet to ask what is its nature. 

Clearly it consists in a certain predominance of conative 
tendencies. But wherein does this predominance consist ? 
In all probability the only ultimate answer is that we are 



WHAT IS A VOLUNTARY DECISION? 235 

here confronted by a unique differentiation of conative con- 
sciousness incapable of exhaustive analysis and description. 

There is, however, room for analysis and descriptions 
which do not pretend to be exhausted. 

In the first place, it ought to be plain, after what we 
have already said, that voluntary decision is no mere 
mechanical resultant of the play of tendencies partly 
reenforcing and partly neutralizing each other. The 
strength of the prevailing motives is no mere remainder 
left over after subtracting the strength of counter motives. 
The analogy of the mechanical composition of forces is 
utterly inapplicable. In forming a resolution I may have 
great difficulty in making up my mind, because the pros 
and cons appear equally balanced. But when the resolu- 
tion is once made, it may be in a high degree firm and 
stable. I may carry it out with unflinching vigor and per- 
tinacity when once the Rubicon is crossed and my mind 
made up. 

The motives which constitute the ground of decision are 
the only motives which remain operative after the decision 
is made and so long as it is persisted in. The opposing 
motives which played a part in the deliberative process 
cease to be motives when deliberation is over. The cor- 
responding conative tendencies either cease to be felt or 
they survive only as difficulties and obstacles in the way 
of carrying out our resolution. Whether they will persist 
or disappear depends on the special circumstances of the 
case. Subsequent conditions may be such as either to keep 
them alive or to divert attention in other directions. When 
a man with a craving for drink resolves to abstain from it, 
he cannot by so doing abolish the animal appetite itself. 
The animal appetite is maintained by organic conditions 
which are beyond his control. In carrying out his decision 



236 VOLUNTARY DECISION 

he has to do battle with it. On the other hand, if in spite 
of conscientious scruples he resolves on indulgence, the 
conscientious scruples soon cease to give him any discom- 
fort. They disappear as he drinks. It is a broad way that 
leadeth to destruction. Regulus, in determining to return 
to Carthage, could hardly dismiss from his thoughts all 
that he was giving up and the violent death which awaited 
him. Probably if he had decided to remain at Rome, he 
would not have been troubled in nearly the same degree. 
Surrounded by his family and friends, and with all kinds 
of congenial channels open for his activity, he would prob- 
ably have been able to avoid dwelling on the thought of 
his violated promise. 

Further, voluntary decision is essentially characterized 
by a certain belief. It finds expression in the explicit 
affirmation or the implicit assumption that so far as de- 
pends on us as we are at the time of deciding, we shall, on 
the ground of certain motives, act in a certain way in pref- 
erence to other possible lines of conduct. In voluntary 
determination, " I will" is also " I shall." Indeed, we find 
the two forms of expression used interchangeably in popu- 
lar speech as if they were synonymous. Of course, the 
judgment " I shall " is conditional. It means that we are 
going to do something if we are not prevented by obstacles. 
This reservation need not refer merely to external hin- 
drances. In saying " I shall do this and not that," we may 
be aware of the likelihood of counter conations arising 
strong enough to break our purpose. When a man says, 
"I am going to give up smoking," he does not mean to 
exclude the possibility of future temptation proving too 
much for him. The self to which the judgment refers is 
the self at the moment of decision as he is then conscious 
of it. It is more or less of a presumption, and often an 



FREEDOM OF THE WILL 237 

ill-founded presumption, that this self will not alter so as 
to make us act contrary to our present resolve. 

Finally, the self of self-consciousness receives in delib- 
eration and voluntary decision a unique qualification. It 
is only in these processes that we become aware of our- 
selves as free agents. 

Freedom of the Will. — Let us put ourselves in the posi- 
tion of a person who is engaged in making up his mind 
which of two alternative ends he will pursue. Plainly his 
future action must appear to him as not yet determined ; 
for it depends on his decision, and what this decision will 
be is not determined until his mind is made up. Further, 
the kind of indeterminateness which appears to him to 
attach to his decision is not at all like that of a future event 
which is beyond his control. For the indeterminateness 
of this is due merely to his ignorance. It can be removed 
merely by waiting to see what will take place, or by obtain- 
ing data which enable him to foresee the course of coming 
events. But a man cannot merely wait to see what his 
own voluntary decision is going to be ; he cannot do so 
because he has to make it himself. Nor can he calculate 
beforehand how it is going to turn out. This is impossible, 
because from the nature of the case he cannot be in pos- 
session of the requisite data. He cannot found his calcu- 
lation on the relative strength of motives. For the relative 
strength of motives is not a ready-made datum which per- 
sists unaltered through the process of deliberation, and 
into the moment of decision. As we have seen, the meta- 
phor of weighing or balancing is here profoundly mislead- 
ing. Motives become stronger and weaker, and even come 
into being or disappear in the process of making up the 
mind. And the person who is making up his mind can- 



238 VOLUNTARY DECISION 

not predict beforehand what motives will become predomi- 
nant so as to constitute the motives of his voluntary- 
decision. He cannot know this until the decision is actually 
made. Before this the assertion that some one motive or 
group of motives is already of such strength as to determine 
his choice, is tantamount to the assertion that he is not 
engaged in choosing at all. In other words, it is equivalent 
to a denial of the freedom of his will ; and this again, if 
we mean by will voluntary decision, is equivalent to a denial 
that he has the power of willing at all. 

This account of what is meant by free will resolves it 
into self-determination. My future decision is indetermi- 
nate for me before it is actually formed, because I have 
myself to determine it. So much at least is necessary to 
the conception of freedom, and so far there can be no 
reasonable doubt that we really are free. But according 
to a certain school of philosophers this is not sufficient. 
To understand their position we must approach the sub- 
ject in a new way. Instead of placing ourselves at the 
inner point of view of a person who is engaged in making 
up his mind, and considering his mental attitude, we must 
suppose ourselves to be looking back on his already formed 
decision, and the deliberation which led up to it. The 
question then arises whether there is any stage of the com- 
pleted process which is not an outcome of previous stages 
and of preexisting psychological and other conditions, — 
including the total character, past history, present circum- 
stance of the self. Those who simply identify freedom 
with self-determination say yes, those who go by the name 
of libertarians say no. According to the libertarian or in- 
determinist there is in the moment of decision a possibility 
of alternate choice independent of all preexisting con- 
ditions, including even the whole nature of the person 



FREEDOM OF THE WILL 239 

choosing. On the other hand, those who regard self-deter- 
mination as in itself constituting freedom, say that the self, 
in determining its own decision, does so in accordance with 
its own nature. They profess themselves unable to un- 
derstand what self-determination could mean, and there- 
fore what freedom could mean, on any other supposition, 
— if any other supposition were intelligible. 

To discuss this vexed question would lead us beyond the 
limits of psychology into ethics, metaphysics, and theol- 
ogy. However it may be answered, we can at least say 
the position of a person deliberately making up his mind 
which of two courses he will pursue, is perfectly unique. 
There is nothing else at all analogous to it. And certainly 
we can find no better word to indicate its peculiarity than 
Freedom. 



INDEX 



A, 



L BSTRACT SENTIMENTS: 226, 
227, 228, 230. 

Abstraction : in connection with process 
of comparison, 133. 

Actions: intentional, but not due to 
voluntary decision, 233-234. 

Active sight : education of, 75. 

experiences of, in develop- 
ment of spatial perception, 89. 

Active touch : education of, 75. 

Amnesia: general, 32. 

affecting special periods, 33. 

affecting certain kinds of experi- 
ence, 35. 

Analysis : nature of psychological, 
10-11. 

Anger : tendencies involved in, 190. 

conceptual, 143. 

as a ' sthenic ' emotion, 191. 

Anthropomorphism : primitive, dis- 
placed by new view, 184-185. 

Aphasia, 35. 

Appetition : conation as, 23. 

Apprehension : simple, 19. 

■ distinguished from judgment, 

20. 

Aspiration : action of sorrow in, 213, 

215- 
Association, 60 seq. 

definition of, 61. 

and spontaneous ideal revival, 

116-117. 

by contiguity, 117 seq. 

" Constructive," 130. 

Associationism : physiological evidence 

against, 32. 
Associations : motor, 61, 67. 

how formed, 61 seq. 

Attention, Ch. VI. 



Attention: object of, ambiguity of the 
term, 49. 

the focus of, 50. 

voluntary and non-voluntary, 50. 

implicitly and explicitly voluntary, 

52- 

active and passive, 53. 

means of fixing, 56. 

effects of, 56-57. 

and retention, 58 seq. 

spontaneous, in emotion of joy, 190. 

Attention-process : unity of, 48, 62. 

Attention-processes : association be- 
tween, 118. 

Aversion : conation as, 23, 24. 



B 



)AIN, Prof. : referred to, 118, 128, 130. 

on tender emotion, 201. 

on sympathy, 202. 

Benevolence : as a tender emotion, 212. 

Bodily processes: and psychic pro- 
cesses, 26. 

Body : and mind, Ch. IV. 

Bosanquet, B. : quoted, 70. 

Bradley, F. H. : on the object of atten- 
tion, 49. 



C 



ARPENTER, Dr.: case quoted 
from, 34. 

Celkers, Mrs. : quotation from, 183. 

Cerebral processes: correlation of, with 
psychical processes, 27. 

Cerebrum : as higher nervous arrange- 
ment, 29. 

Child : development of, 72 seq. 

education of sight and touch in, 

73 seq. 

development of manipulation in, 

76. 



241 



242 



INDEX 



Child: development of modes of loco- 
motion in, 77. 

development of ideational process 

in, 78. 

deliberate and spontaneous imita- 
tion in, 80 seq. 

development of language in, 157 

seq. 

imitation of sounds by, 158. 

synthetic function of language 

in development of, 161-162. 

interpretation by, of language used 

by others, 163. 

growth of inter-subjective inter- 
course in, 170 seq. 

anthropomorphic tendency in, 

186. 

development of sentiments in, 227. 

Cognition, 18, 19. 

development of, and interest, 80. 

Colligation, 45. 

Comparison : revival of similars as 
source of materials for, 129. 

a productive process, 133-134. 

and abstraction, 133-135. 

Conation, 18, 19. 

and feeling-attitude, 21 seq. 

relation of, to its fulfilment, 21. 

■ satisfaction of, and object of, 22-24. 

as appetition, 23. 

as aversion, 23. 

connection of, with feeling-attitude, 

24. 

and its end, 232. 

Conative tendencies : unity of the sejf, 
through organization of, 232-233. 

Conception : definition of, 142. 

Conceptual analysis : 143-144. 

language as instrument of, 

148 seq. 

Conceptual character of ideational pro- 
cess, 142 seq. 

Conceptual synthesis, 143-144. 

• language as instrument of, 

148 seq. 

concepts formed by, 152. 

expression of, by child, 162. 

Concomitant variation : in psychical 
and cerebral process, 27. 

Concrete sentiments, 226-228. 



Conscious : life, 7-9. 

process and nervous process, 8-9. 

Constructive process : ideal, distin- 
guished from productive process, 
132. 

Contact: sensations of, 42, 43. 

distinction between single 

and double, 102. 

Contiguity : as condition of formation 
of associations, 62, 63-64. 

law of, 118. 

Continuity of interest : as factor in for- 
mation of associations, 118-120. 

Conventional signs : nature of, 154. 

■ advantage of, over natural, 

156. 

■ displacement of natural signs 

by, 157- 

Cooperation : social, in growth of inter- 
subjective intercourse, 175-176. 



D. 



[See Voluntary de- 
n voluntary decision, 



/ECISION : 
cision.] 
Deliberation : 

234-235- 

typical process of, 235. 

weighing of motives in, 236. 

Denunciation : contrasted with re- 
proach, 208. 

"Derivative": the word, as applied to 
emotions, 196. 

Description : as a method of psychol- 
ogy, 10. 

Despair : as form of sorrow, 207. 

Despondency : relation of, to sorrow, 
206. 

Dispositions : psychical, 7-9. 

physiological, 8-9. 

psychical and physiological, corre- 
lation of, 32 seq. 

association of, 59 seq. 

psychophysical, 63. 

Double personality : case of, 34. 



ErBBINGHAUS : referred to, 62. 
Education : attention in, 52. 
Egger, V. : representing type of 
auditive verbal imagery, 111. 



INDEX 



243 



Emotion, Ch. XV.: as determining 
ideal revival, 120-121. 

trends of activity connected with 

varieties of, 190. 

and organic sensation : James's 

theory of, 192 seq. 

distinct from a sensation, 195. 

■ tender, and sympathy, 201-203. 

Emotions : general nature of the, 188^^. 

irreducibility of, to their com- 
ponents, 188-189. 

as directed toward an object, 189- 

190. 

sthenic and asthenic, 191. 

as primary and derivative, 195 seq. 

treatment of, from genetic point of 

view, 197. 

psychological method for dealing 

with, 200. 

tendencies of, 201. 

Explanation : psychological, 11-12. 

Explicit reproduction, 66. 

Extensity : as a general character of 
sensations, 42. 

as constituent of experience of ex- 
tension, 85. 

differentiation of the parts of, 87. 

External reality : perception of, 90 seq. 

through motor adaptation, 

93 seq. 

External world : knowledge of, 164 seq. 

inter-subjective intercourse 

and, 180 seq. 

.TEAR: as an asthenic emotion, 191- 
192. 

Feeling-attitude, 18. 

variations of, 24. 

Foster, M. : quoted, 29, 30. 

Free-will: in voluntary decision, 239- 
241. 

as self-determination, 240. 

Friendship: as psychical disposition, 7. 

Fusion : as a mode of union of sensa- 
tions, 45. 



Generalizations: psychological, n. 

Gestures, imitative : language of, 154, 
_ 156. 

Gratitude : a tender joy, 208 seq. 

element of sorrow in, 209-210, 

211. 

idea of " cost " in, 210. 

for love, 210-211. 

part played by sympathy in, 211- 

212. 

joy and sorrow in, 218. 

Grief: as an asthenic emotion, 191. 

Grouping : as mode of union of sensa- 
tions, 45, 46. 



!! 



EARING : sensations of, 42. 



G 



ENERALIZATION : applied 
mental development, 15. 



IBSEN : tragedy of, compared with 

one of Shakespeare, 220. 
Idea: definition of, 104. 
Idea and image, Ch. X. 

plasticity of, 103. 

Ideal construction : in children's play, 

79- 

functions of, 103-104. 

revival of similars as factor 

in, 123. 

forms of combination in, 132. 

types of, 135 seq. 

serial order in, 137. 

revival of similars as deter- 
mining, 138. 

■ in contrivance of means to 

ends, 140. 

as basis of logical operations, 

141-142. 

■ a conceptual process, 143. 

material embodiments of, as 

means for communication of 
ideas, 147. 

concepts formed through, 

152. 

social aspect of, 133. 

adaptation of, to ideally repre- 
sented reality, 166-168. 

failure of, when in conflict 

with perceptual data, 169-170. 

the world and the self as 

known through, Ch. XIV. 



244 



INDEX 



Ideal production : not accounted for by 

association, 130. 
Ideal reproduction, 114 seq. [See 

Ideal revival.] 

and production, 130-132. 

Ideal revival : conditions of, Ch. XI. 

spontaneous, 114 seq. 

and association, 116- 

117. 
■ emotion as determining, 120- 

121. 

by similars, 121-123. 

of similars, 123 seq. 

divergent, 126 seq. 

■ deals with universals, not 

particulars, 144-145. 
Ideas : communication of, 146 seq. 
motor tendencies of, as origin 

of natural signs, 155. 
as belonging distinctively to the 

self, 168. 
Ideational process and perceptual 

process, 70-71, 103-104. 
transition to, from percep- 
tual, 77-78. 
conceptual character of, 142 

seq. 

productive aspect of, Ch. XII. 

Image: independent of movement, 107. 
nature of, as component of 

idea, 104-105. 
representative functions of, 105- 

106. 

and impression, 106 seq. 

fragmentariness of the, 106-107. 

independence of, 107. 

fluctuation of, 107-108. 

indistinctness of, 108-109. 

lack of intensity of, 199. 

and idea, Ch. X. 

Imagery : mental, types of, 109 seq. 

motor, no. 

verbal, no seq. 

motor-auditive, no. 

type of verbal, 110-112. 

olfactive, 112-113. 

Imitation : deliberate, 81. 

spontaneous, 81. 

as presupposing motor associa- 
tion, 82. 



Imitation : of sounds, by child, 158. 

part played by, in inter-subjective 

intercourse, 174. 

— ■ — in connection with social coopera- 
tion, 175, 199. 

function of, in development of 

self-consciousness, 178. 

Imitative gestures : language of, 154. 

defects of, as compared with 

conventional signs, 156. 

Implicit reproduction, 67 seq. 

Impression : meaning of, 106 seq. 

and image, 106. 

included in context of sense- 
experience, 106-107. 

Inattention : total, 54. 

relative, 54-56. 

Indeterminism, 240. 

Intensity : distinctions of, in sensations, 
41. 

of mental lack of, in mental 

images, 109. 

Interest, 19. 

feeling-attitude as, 55. 

cooperation of, with mental prog- 
ress, 80. 

Interests : differentiation of, 223. 

Inter-subjective intercourse : growth 
of, 170-177. 

and self-consciousness, 177- 

180. 

and the external world, 180- 

187. 

as test of the physically real, 

182. 

Introspection : as a source of psycho- 
logical data, 12-14. 

not " sense," but perception, 13. 

J AMES, Prof. W. : on extensity, 86. 

his theory of emotion, 192 seq. 

on shadings of emotional feeling, 

196. 
on descriptions of the emotions, 

197. 
Jealousy, 189. 
Joy : expansive activity involved in, 190- 

191. 
as a ' sthenic ' emotion, 191. 



INDEX 



245 



Joy : as a diffusive emotion, 209. 

and sorrow, interaction of, as 

source of tenderness, 217-219. 
in gratitude, essential to its tender 

feeling, 218-219. 

and grief, harmonious union of, 221. 

Judgment: distinguished from simple 

apprehension, 19-20. 



K, 



L ANT : referred to, 18. 
Keller, Helen, 58. 
Kinassthetic sensations, 90, 91. 
under motor control, 95. 



L 



.ANGUAGE, Ch. XIII. 

as instrument of conceptual analy- 
sis and synthesis, 149. 

as instrument of thought and com- 
munication, 152-153. 

■ of natural signs, 153 seq. 

development of, in the child, 157 

seq. 

use of, at the perceptual level, 159. 

relation of, to universal features, 

160-161. 

synthetic function of, in child's 

development, 161. 

part played by, in inter-subjective 

intercourse, 173. 

Libertarians : view of, 240-241. 

Local sign : differences of, 88. 

Locke: on introspection, 12. 

on ideal combination, 132. 

Love : as an emotional system, 215. 

tenderness and, 215-216. 

human, tenderness of, 220-221. 

IVIacDOUGALL, W.: adaptation 

from article by, 31. 
Manipulation : development of, in child, 

76. 
Mechanical view of nature : due to 

social cooperation, 184. 
Melancholy : as form of sorrow, 206. 
Mental development : results of, as a 

psychological datum, 15-17. 
imagery, 109 seq. [See also 

Imagery, Image.] 



Mind: and body, Ch. IV. 

Motive : two meanings of the term, 235- 
236. 

Motives : fluctuation of, in deliberation, 
236. 

metaphor of "weighing," mislead- 
ing, 236, 239. 

Motor adaptation : 91 seq. 

definition of, 93. 

in connection with experience 

of resisted motor effort, 95-96. 

Motor associations, 61. 

explicit reproduction occur- 
ring through, 67. 

in child's development, 72. 

in imitation, 82. 

Motor imagery: peculiar nature of, no. 

type of, in. 

Motor tendencies of ideas : as origin of 
natural signs, 155. 

Movement sensations : grouping of, 47. 

Mozart : referred to, 8. 

1\ATURAL signs: language of, 153 
seq. 

distinguished from conven- 
tional, 154. 

origin of, as language, 155. 

instruments of conceptual 

analysis and synthesis, 155, 156. 

Nervous arrangements : higher and 
lower, 28 seq. 

higher, more stable than 

lower, 30. 

Nervous system : central, function of, 26. 

Non-voluntary attention, 50 seq. 



0, 



'BJECT: and subject, 2-3. 

Object of conation : distinguished from 
satisfaction of conation, 22. 

Objects : how the psychologist is con- 
cerned with, 4. 

Olfactive imagery, 112-113. 

Organic sensations, 42, 101. 

relation of, to pressure-sensa- 
tion, 43. 

as illustrating nature of inten- 
sity, 86. 

relation of, to emotion, 192^^. 



246 



INDEX 



Others : interpretation of the minds of, 
14. 



P 



ATHOS : joy and sorrow in, 220. 

Patriotism : as a sentiment, 227. 

Perception : introspection as, 13. 

conditions determining, 13. 

spatial, 84 seg. 

of external objects and of the self, 

Ch. IX. 

of external reality, 90 seg. 

Perceptual process : and ideational pro- 
cess, 70-71. 

transition from, to ideational, 

77-78. 

divergent revival in, 126. 

use of words, 159. 

voluntary decision not part 

of, 231. 

Pity, 205 seg. 

as derivative emotion, 195. 

tender, but independent of sympa- 
thy, 204, 207. 

a kind of sorrow, 205, 207. 

pleasurable element in, 217. 

Play : of children, ideational process in, 

79- 

Poe, E. A. : referred to, 16. 

Prediction : power of, involved in power 
of explanation, 12. 

Presentation : order of, as condition in 
formation of associations, 65. 

Pressure : sensations of, 42, 43. 

Pride : as an abstract sentiment, 228- 
229. 

distinction between, and vanity, 

229. 

Primary emotions, 195-197. 

Protensity : distinctions of, in sensa- 
tions, 42. 

Proximity : as condition in formation of 
associations, 62, 64, 118. 

Psychical : dispositions, 7-9. 

state, not synonymous with sub- 
jective state, 3-4. 

process, definition of, 1. 

relation of, to object, 1-3. 

conditions of, 7-9. 

and bodily process, 27. 



Psychical process : correlation of, with 
cerebral processes, 27. 

not products of nervous pro- 
cesses, 28. 

distinction of higher and 

lower in, 30. 

Psychologist: how far concerned with 
external world, 4. 

Psychology : subject-matter of, Ch. I. 

method of, 10-12. 

sources of data of, 12-17. 

true aim of, 16. 

Psychophysical dispositions, 63. 

Psychophysical parallelism : hypothesis 
of, 27 ff. 







UALITY : distinctions of, in sensa- 
tions, 41. 



R. 



.EPENTANCE : action of sorrow in, 

213. 
Repetition : effect of, in formation of 

associations, 65. 
Reproach : as a tender emotion, 

grounded in sorrow, 208. 

■ contrasted with denunciation, 208. 

source of joy in, 219. 

Reproduction, Ch. VII. 

by association, 60. 

forms of, 66 seg. 

explicit, 66-67. 

implicit, 67 seg., 119. 

ideal, 114 seg. [See Ideal revival.] 

Resignation : action of sorrow in, 213, 

215. 
Retentiveness, Ch. VII. 
Reverence : action of sorrow in, 213, 

214. 

distinguished from awe, 214. 

source of tenderness in, 214. 

Revival: ideal, conditions of, Ch. XI. 

spontaneous, 114 seg. 

Ribot, Prof. : on sympathy, 202. 



S 



ATISFACTION : of conation, 22. 
Scott, Sir W. : quotations from, illus- 
trating divergent revival, 127, 129. 



INDEX 



247 



Self: and external object, antithesis 
between, 166 seq. 

projection of the, 91, 96 seq. [See 

also Self-projection.] 

the embodied, 100-102, 180. 

and not-self, spatial demarcation 

between, 102, 168. 
Self-consciousness : variation of, accord- 
ing to social situation, 178. 

and consciousness of external 

world, 164. 

and inter-subjective intercourse, 

177 seq. 
function of imitation in develop- 
ment of, 178. 

as essential factor in voluntary 

decisions, 234-235. 
Self-determination : and freedom of 

will, 240-241. 
Self-love: as a concrete sentiment, 
227. 

gratification of, 228. 

Self-projection : a factor in perception 
of external reality, 91. 

general condition of, 97. 

degrees of the process of, 99-100. 

a condition of self-consciousness, 

164. 

implied in ordinary thinking, 186- 

187. 
Sensation, Ch. V. 

and stimulus, 40-41. 

different classes of, 42. 

qualitative affinities of, 43. 

attention as intensifying, 57. 

Sensations : objective, not subjective, 
3> 4. 37- 

and sensible qualities, 38-40. 

characters of, in general, 41 seq. 

Sense-experience: and motor control, 

94- 
Senses : higher and lower, 44 seq. 
Sensible qualities: distinguished from 

sensations, 38-40. 
Sensory revivals : 37. 
Sentiment : application of the word, 225. 
Sentiments : the, Ch. XVII. 

the genesis of, 223-225. 

as dispositions, not actual feelings, 

225-226. 



Sentiments : as sources of emotions, 
226. 

development of, in complexity and 

abstractness, 226-230. 

personification of abstract, 230. 

Shakespeare: tragedy of, compared 
with one of Ibsen, 220. 

quoted, 221. 

Shand, A. F. : referred to, as author of 

Ch. XVI, 197. 
on emotions rising from senti- 
ments, 226. 

on vanity, 230. 

Shape senses : 46. 

Shinn, Miss: on the development of a 

child, 74, 76. 
Sight : sensations of, 42. 

as a shape sense, 46. 

education of, 73 seq. 

Sign : definition of, 148. 
Signs : language as a system of, 148. 
[See Natural signs.] 

conventional and natural, 154. 

Sigwart : quoted; 16. 

Similars : reproduction by, 121 seq. 

of, 123 seq. 

degrees in revival as, 128. 

not always tender, 217. 

Simple apprehension : distinguished 

from judgment, 19-20. 
Smell : sensations of, 42. 
Smells : qualitative affinity between, and 

tastes, 44. 
Social consciousness : development of, 
in child, 172-173. 

development of, one with that 

of self-consciousness, 177. 
Social communion : psychology of, 170 

seq. 
Sorrow: in relation to its object, 205, 
213. 

impulse of, to restore loss to object, 

206, 213. 
Soul : conception of a, useless to the 

psychologist, 8. 
Sounds : successive grouping of, 46. 
Spatial order: perception of, learned 
through change of local sign, 
88. 
Spatial perception 84 seq. 



248 



INDEX 



Spatial perception : extensity as datum 

for development of, 86. 

by means of local signs, 88. 

development of, through 

movement of eyes and limbs, 

89-90. 
Stimulus : relation of, to sensation, 40- 

41. 
Strieker, Prof. : as representing type of 

motor verbal imagery, in. 
Subject : relation of, to object, 2. 

nature of the, 5-7. 

Subjective : process, contrasted with its 

object, 3. 

state, and psychical state, 3-5. 

selection, law of, 73. 

process, blending of, with bodily 

experiences, 101. 
processes, ultimate division of, 

Ch. III. 
Sympathy: and tender emotion, 201 

seq. 

stages of, 202. 

two meanings of the word, 203. 

as reflected emotion, 204. 

part played by, in gratitude, 211- 

212. 
Synthesis : conceptual, 143-144. 



T/ 



. ASTE : sensations of, 42. 

Tastes : qualitative affinity between, and 
smells, 44. 

Temperature : sensations of, 42. 

Tendencies : conflict of, without volun- 
tary decision, 234. 

Tender emotion : and sympathy, 201 seq. 

not simple and primary, 221- 

222. 

Tender emotions: sources of, Ch. XVI. 

Tenderness : as a complex and derived 
emotion, 216 seq. 

joy and sorrow as source of, 217 

seq. 

Touch : education of, 73, 75. 

visual guidance of, 76. 

Trust : action of sorrow in, 213, 215. 

Tylor, E. B. : on deaf mutes, 156. 



U NCONSCIOUS assumptions, 68. 
Universal : general or distributive, 

142. 

collective, 142-143. 

Universals: conceptual analysis of, as 

applied to words, 151. 



V, 



ANITY: distinction of, from pride, 
229. 

Verbal imagery, no seq. 

motor-auditive type of, 110-111. 

Visualization : varying powers of, 108. 

Visual sensation. [See Sight.] 

Voluntary attention, 50 seq. 

Voluntary decision, Ch. XVIII. 

intentional actions not involv- 
ing, 233. 

deliberation in, 234-235. 

self-consciousness as essential 

factor in, 234-235. 

motives for and of, 236. 

— nature of a, 236 seq. 

characterized by a certain 

belief, 238. 



W, 



ARD, Dr. J. : on extensity, 85. 

on the anthropomorphic tendency, 

99-100. 

on visual imagery, 108. 

— — on desire at the ideational level, 
232. 

Will: development of, 231-233. 

freedom of, 239-241. 

freedom of, as self-determination, 

240. 

Word-deafness, 35. 

Words : as objects of simple apprehen- 
sion, 20. 

as images, 105. 

universals constituting the meaning 

of, 151. 



/OLA, M. : as type of olfactive, 113. 



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Psrtoiogy a$ m Hid in teaching 

%s& ^* t^* 

That scientific teaching is impossible without a. 
knowledge of Psychology is no longer a debated 
question. But there is an important question in this 
connection which has not yet been answered : WHAT 
BOOK shall the hundreds of thousands of earnest 
teachers study who have not had the advantages of a 
college training? 

1. Do they need a book which they can understand — 
a book whose apt illustrations bring abstract truths 
within the range of universal comprehension ? 

2. Do they need a book which makes it clear that 
there are questions which it does not attempt to 
answer, questions that no elementary text-book can 
hope to answer, and which will thus stimulate them to 
further study and further investigation ? 

3. Do they need a book which is constantly raising 
questions about their minds and the minds of their 
pupils — a book which will make them students of their 
own minds and the minds of their pupils in spite of 
themselves? 

4. Do they need a book which is itself from beginning 
to end a perfect sample of the inductive method of 
teaching, beginning with the simple and the known 
and going to the complex and unknown ? 

5. Do they need a book which thousands of teachers 
have declared was the first to interest them in the 
Study of mind? 

If so, there is one book that will fully satisfy their 
Sleeds. That book is Gordy's New Psychology. 

If you wish to see for yourself whether it possesses 
all of these characteristics send for a copy. It will cost 
you nothing if you do not like it. If you wish to keep 
it the price is $1.25. 

HINDS & NOBLE 

3 1 -33-35 West 15th Street New York City 



The Science of Study 

By JAMES G. MOORE 
Cloth — Price $1.00 Postpaid— TWELVEMO 



From the Preface — To see an object is a simple 
act. To perceive its outlines accurately is an act of higher 
quality. But to behold a thing in the fullness of its manifold 
interrelations is a power partly inherited, partly acquired, 
whose rarity is not less than its priceless worth. Nowhere is 
this comparison more prominently forced upon our notice than 
in the field of educational work. ***** Few indeed 
are the educators who have dealt with the problem of educa- 
tional work in full recognition of the organic interrelations 
of its physical, psychological and sociological aspects and 
with a comprehensive grasp of the whole student period in 
its bearing upon the future life work of the student. 

***** fj ie s t u dent himself must be understood, 
and his instruction adapted to his natural conditions of devel- 
opment, both those conditions which apply to him in common 
with all students, and also those conditions peculiarly indi- 
vidual. Further, the social and industrial life surrounding 
him must be carefully studied, as determining to a consider- 
able extent the whole character of his future life work. For 
education ought to prepare the student directly and organic- 
ally, yet broadly and thoroughly, for a life work. There can 
be no other justification for our splendid array of educational 
institutions. In fact, there can be no other justification for 
our very existence. It is not enough for us to be. We must 
do — do something worthy, and do it well. Yet society is so 
organized that thorough preparation for a life work necessarily 
involves a preparation for usefulness in certain fields of cor- 
related activities. This brings an obligation for trained social 
service. Besides, most persons feel an active interest in 
certain subjects not in any way connected with their profess- 
ional interests, and oftentimes achieve valuable results along 
such lines. To provide for such training and to furnish general 
culture along those great lines of activity not included in the 
student's professional training becomes an essential part of 
a complete scheme of study. 



Hinds & Noble, Publishers 

31-33-35 "West 15th Street New York City 

Schoolbooks of all Publishers at 07ie store 



Of Two Hundred Books 

n Pedagogy 

There is none we would sooner put 
into the hands of a young teacher 

To many young teachers, "pedagogy" was and is a 
term to conjure by ; its acquisition represents hours of 
hard, dry reading and study ; life's pleasures say " don't," 
duty says "do"; and between 1*he conflict of desires, the 
course is frequently decided by the first book which is 
attempted. It must be confessed that much that is found 
under pedagogy were better never read by the young 
teacher, but seeley's foundations of education is not 
so accounted. The book is for young teachers, and its 
conception and execution are admirable. Philosophy, 
experience, illustration are blended in an exceedingly 
interesting manner. No teacher, young or old, but will 
have a higher conception of his work after reading the 
book. It is an inspiration, it is practical, it comes from 
a man who knows what he wants to say and how to say it. 
The young teacher who begins a course of reading with 
this book, must read others, because of interest awakened 
and stimulated by Doctor Seeley. Of two hundred books 
on pedagogy on our shelves, there is none we would sooner 
put into the hands of a young teacher. — Education 
{Boston), April, jgo2. 



The Foundations of Education 

BY LEVI SEELEY, PH. D. 

Author of " History of Education" 
Professor of Pedagogy in the New Jersey State Normal School 



CLOTH — Price $1.00 Postpaid — twelvemo. 



Hinds & Noble, Publishers of 

Gordy's New Psychology, $1.25 
Stout's Manual of Psychology, $1 50 

31-33-35 "West 15th Street New York City 

Schoolbooks of all publishers at one store 



SEP 22 1903 



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